Is It Inappropriate To Call About A Teaching Job Interview After The Principal Emailed You?
The crumbs from my 7-year-old’s goldfish crackers were still scattered across the kitchen table when Lila leaned over my laptop, her iced coffee sweating through the neon koozie, and tapped the screen. There it was: an email from the principal at the elementary school 10 minutes from her house, confirming she’d landed an initial interview for the open 3rd grade position. “I want to call him to say thank you and double-check the time,” she said, twisting the wedding band on her finger back and forth. “But he reached out via email. Is that weird? Am I being pushy?”
Lila’s been subbing in our district for three years, took a year off after her son was born, and this position is exactly what she’s been chasing: permanent contract, close enough to pick him up from daycare if he’s sick, a grade level she loves. She’d stayed up for three nights reworking her resume and cover letter, so I got why she was overthinking every tiny step. I remember feeling that same way when I was job hunting for my first teaching job 12 years ago. After an assistant principal emailed me to confirm my interview, I spent 45 minutes pacing my apartment trying to decide if I should call to confirm, convinced any wrong move would knock me out of the running before I even walked in the door.
We talked it through for a few minutes, then I texted Sarah, a principal I know who carpooled with me last year, to get her take. We ran into her that Saturday at our kids’ U8 soccer game, leaning against the chain-link fence while our kids wandered off to pick dandelions in the outfield instead of playing. She laughed when I asked her the question, said it’s one of the most common questions she gets from first-time candidates and people returning to teaching after a break.
“A lot of people assume if I reached out via email, I only want to communicate via email,” she said, brushing grass off her jeans. “But that’s not how this job works. I send 90% of my confirmation emails between bus duty and IEP meetings, when I have five minutes to knock it out between things. I’ve misdated emails, mistyped room numbers, even sent confirmation to the wrong candidate once. A quick check-in doesn’t bother me—it saves me a headache later.”
That’s not to say all calls are welcome, of course. Sarah told me about a candidate last year who called her 20 minutes after she sent the confirmation email, asking for a full run-down of the school’s test scores, curriculum map, and after-school program schedule. All of that was posted clearly on the school’s website, and the email had a link to the open house page with all that information. That call ate up 10 minutes of her lunch break, and she noticed. “If the answer is already in the email or online, don’t call,” she said. “That’s when it feels inappropriate.”
Lila’s ask was small: the email said her interview was “sometime between 9 and 10 am” on Thursday, and she needed to drop her son at daycare 15 minutes away, so she wanted to lock in a specific time to avoid being late. We helped her draft what she’d say, short and to the point, and she called the front office after we left the soccer game. She didn’t ask for the principal directly, just left a message with the administrative assistant: “Hi, this is Lila Mendez, I’m calling about the 3rd grade teaching interview this Thursday, October 12. I just wanted to confirm a 9:15 start time works for Principal Tate, since I have a drop-off to coordinate. I can be reached at 555-0123 if anything needs to change. Thank you so much.”
Principal Tate called her back 10 minutes later. He’d actually shifted all his morning meetings that day and moved interviews to start at 9:30, and forgot to update the original confirmation email. If Lila hadn’t called, she would have showed up 15 minutes early to an empty office, waiting around while he finished a meeting with a parent. When she went in for the interview, he even mentioned it: “I appreciate you double-checking. Three other candidates for this opening didn’t, and two showed up at the wrong time already.”
Over the past few years, I’ve talked to a half-dozen building administrators about this, and the general consensus boils down to three simple rules that anyone can follow. First, if the email says “no phone calls please,” don’t call. That’s a clear boundary, respect it. Second, only call if you have a specific, unanswered question or need to confirm an unclear detail. If the email already gave you the date, time, location, and parking instructions, you don’t need to call just to say thank you—a quick reply email works fine. Third, keep it short. If you leave a message, keep it under 30 seconds. If you get the principal on the line directly, don’t launch into a rehash of your resume or a 5-minute speech about why you’re the best fit. That’s what the interview is for.
Lila got invited back for a second interview earlier this week, so we’re still waiting to hear if she gets the offer. No one can guarantee that calling will get you the job, of course, and there’s always a chance you’ll catch someone having a bad day. But the idea that calling is inherently inappropriate just because the first outreach was over email just isn’t true, not for most schools. Most principals are just juggling 20 different things at once, same as the rest of us. A quick, polite check-in is far more likely to help you than hurt you.
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