Miguel Tremblay, a father of children attending a primary school in Montreal, recorded a total of 456 email messages from the school during the calendar year 2025. Of those messages, 58 percent required a direct response, and Tremblay estimated that reading the entire set took roughly fourteen hours.
Tremblay began counting the messages as part of a personal effort to gauge how much communication his children's school sends to parents. By logging each email, he was able to separate those that simply provided information from the ones that asked for an action, such as confirming attendance, completing forms, or replying to inquiries.
The data collected by Tremblay reflects a broader pattern observed among Montreal families, where large volumes of school-related emails have become common. Many parents have responded to the influx by tracking or filtering messages themselves, aiming to stay on top of required actions while managing the time needed to read routine updates.
The fourteen hours Tremblay spent reviewing the emails illustrate the time commitment involved for a parent trying to keep up with school communications. The proportion of action‑required messages—more than half of the total—means that a significant share of the correspondence demands a response rather than being purely informational.
While the numbers come from a single household, they provide a concrete example of the communication load that can be placed on parents in the Montreal school system. The experience underscores why some families choose to monitor their inboxes closely, seeking to balance the need for timely replies with the practical limits of daily schedules.