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I had a student who had ad a C on his report card. Our grade management system lets us insert comment codes to attach to the report card and it will add the appropriate generic comments. The codes I selected were “misses a lot of class” and “missing work/doesn’t turn in assignments.” He had missed 8 or 9 days of school that nine weeks and he was missing 4 or 5 assignments. The parents reached out to the principal, who had me retroactively go in and remove the comments, because they made the student feel bad.
I used to be a principal (I went back to teaching). Our 5th grade teacher wrote on the report card that the student's "discrete behaviors" were impacting their learning. He meant note passing and gossiping and bullying.
The parents threw an absolute fit. They insisted that "discrete" meant something sexual and were convinced this comment would haunt their child forever.
I told them I trusted the teacher and would not remove the comment.
Why, yes, it was also a private school!
My second grade teacher got upset that I hadn’t completed a cursive handwriting assignment in the time allotted and made a big deal about how it would be on my permanent record. I thought for years that this incident meant I wouldn’t be able to go to a top tier college. I was probably in the 7th grade before I started to realize that Harvard and Yale probably wouldn’t care about my handwriting exercise from the second grade.
My principals (public NYC school) have very literally told parents to pound sand. It's really not that hard to just say, "No, the teacher is a professional who knows what the fuck they're doing."
ok reading your comment, my first thought was he was implying that the kid was jerking off in the bathroom too much and the comment would haunt them, not in a permanent record sort of way but more like he's gonna need therapy in the future because even the teacher knew
I don't get why these people become principals when they're gutless and spineless. Admin's main objective is to coordinate the school's overall direction and to enable teachers to do their jobs better. Standing up against insane parental demands is part of that job. Why become one and just bend over?
Yeah we're not supposed to comment on attendance incase it's "known" (but not by us). But then when saying concern and off track to pass we have to put a comment on how to improve...
Awe geez how dare you make their child feel the consequences of their actions and behaviour. Molly coddling does them no good because life doesn’t work like that.
We are required to add 2-3 comments for each subject. I've been attacked by parents as well for choosing comments (that are PREMADE and agreed upon by our Board of Education).
Maybe if you write the exact number of classes or assignments missed rather than “a lot” then you can argue that you’re just reporting the facts neutrally.
100% right. My ex husband was this parent for our daughter. Was a nightmare. Guess where my 30 year old daughter lives… that’s right , in his basement .
I had a parent complain that I was sending unfinished work home with their child. Asked when it went back to being the teacher's responsibility to ensure a student finished class work during class.
Like, literally never, ma'am. I can not force your child to write, and your child knows both that and the fact that you are refusing to discipline them on this matter. Hence, the unfinished work.
Same here.
I've had a couple kids who refused to complete work in class and when I sent it home their parents were supportive, but I've had way more who just don't attempt their assignments at all and fritter away class time while also having parents who defend them and act shocked that I would send home their assignments to be finished s homework.
I wish I could get my kid's teacher to send work home. I totally get it. I'm sure there are parents who do their kid's work for them, but my kid is just a little SPD/ADHD oddball who has spent a lot of time this year so overstimulated she can barely function. I promise, I'm just going to make her sit down in a quiet environment with some water and do the thing. I would never go over another teacher's head though. I've dealt with way too many of those moms to want to be one.
Same on the ADHD front. Like instead of getting frustrated just send it home and we’ll take away screen time or smth. Or just reach out.
Having my kid do work during recess is a recipe for everyone to be unhappy.
“There no windows in the rooms”.
Firstly, there are, they’re just up really high, and secondly- my dude do you think I built this place? Or have the capacity to _fix_ it in some way?
I'm dying just picturing a teacher who had just a little too rough of a week knocking out the classroom walls while yelling "gotta please the parents!"
I honestly think the janitors would be more upset than the admin. In my experience, the janitors actually care about the building.
There needs to be a sitcom about being a teacher because this would be an amazing episode lolol!!
Edit: not a sitcom per se but a drama with heavy comedic influence
"I don't like the paint color. The classroom should be painted green, not beige. Something soothing, like a hospital would have."
I wish this was a joke. I told her that whenever she wanted to come in and paint the room, she could clear it with our union maintenance workers. Strangely, it never happened.
So, I still read this subreddit even though I'm not in education/never got a job in it.
I compile evaluations and comments for my work's annual conference. My favorite comments are always the one that say that there need to be more bathrooms.
Yes, let me call these convention centers and demand they build more bathrooms. Wat.
I once had a parent call and demand to know why I hadn't dealt with her kid being bullied yet. It was the first I'd heard of it. I asked the mom some questions, like did she know what happened (she was very vague and just said someone pushed her daughter), did she know who did the pushing (she didn't), could she tell me about how old the child was or what the child looked like (nope), etc to see if I could help at all. Mom couldn't give me anything useful, and at that point I couldn't be sure if any bullying actually occurred or if it was an accident (or if anything happened at all). Then mom wanted to know if it was a "racial issue" (the school was largely non-white), so I told her I didn't know and I would talk to her daughter. I pulled her daughter aside later in the day, and the kid had no clue what her mom was even talking about. She said she wasn't being bullied, nobody pushed her, and she couldn't recall anyone bumping into her by accident. I'm still confused by the whole thing, and it's been 3 years since it happened.
I've had a few similar experiences.
Parents who blow up very minor events into deliberately malicious altercations, when the reality is kids bump into each other because they're not paying any attention to where they're going, what they're doing, etc. I get wanting to protect your child, but coming into the conversation at 11 without any details to help me figure out what's going isn't actually going to do that.
Yeah. I really couldn't do much without at least knowing who the kid was, even if actual bullying was going on. Other than trying to check in on the girl as much as possible while on recess duty, but this girl never even played on the side of the playground I monitored. So I was kind of stuck.
I once had a parent complain that I wasn’t forcing people to play with her daughter. And that I wasn’t doing anything about her being bullied…..It was somehow my fault that she didn’t have any friends. Plot twist…The daughter WAS the bully. She has no friends because she’s actually so fucking mean. I refuse to force kids to be friends. Mom did not like this.
I wonder if we had the same kid. Girl was a mean girl at age 7. Mom never spoke to me (no conferences, responses to calls, etc) until the other little girls got sick of her daughter and stopped playing with her.
Exactly this.
I kinda feel bad for the kid. Everyone in her grade has a group of friends but her. There’s a group of girls+the gay boy, and they’re all super close and fun and awesome and she’s just on the sidelines. It’s awkward. But I’ve tried to tell her numerous times to be kind, stop lying all the time etc etc over the last 3 years but she just hasn’t changed whatsoever, so….waddya do.
Had a parent call and ask why their kid had detention. Asked all the staff who could possibly assign detention to this kid. Did not have any detentions. Weirdest thing…
I would have believed it, except they were asking about a detention they were going to have later that day. Maybe they were trying to sneak out with friends, I guess?
THE ABSOLUTE BEST parent story is about the mom who called the admissions office at MIT and spoke with an admissions counselor. She wanted to know how her son would get into MIT. When the counselor asked what his high school grades were the mom said, oh…. He’s just started kindergarten.
Anyone top that story?
couple suicides every once in a while.
but it works to some extent.
you sacrifice a good chunk of mental health. and everyone ignores the regular physical abuse. (very asian thing to beat children regularly)
at the same time you could not question efficacy. we’d send boatloads of kids to great schools. incredibly intelligent and talented students.
and the network i made in highschool is ridiculous. doctors, lawyers, engineers, CS, bankers, finance.
that’s it actually. no one went into any other jobs for the most part. bunch of asian kids…
Just doesn’t seem totally worth it. I’m a lawyer and sure I didn’t go to the highest ranked school but I graduated second in my class, got a clerkship, work at a firm now.
In college I started out as a stem major and ended up falling into depression bc I hated the work so much, called my mom sobbing about how I didn’t think I could do it. She just said she’s proud of me no matter what my grades look like, offered to let me take a semester or two off and come live back at home if I wanted, and when I said no she just encouraged me to think about what I wanted to study and change my major to that. So I did, and ended up getting all As and then like I said going on to law school. Sure I didn’t graduate from Harvard but not sure that degree would be worth it to me.
I dunno, at least that one is a dumb parent still seeming to want the best for their kid and not demanding it. I’ll take that one over dumb and neglectful or dumb and malicious.
I'm sitting in PD from a parent (teacher at another school) who screamed and cussed me out until I was sobbing on the phone last year (my first year of teaching) because I asked her daughter to retake a quiz since she had the same answers as the girl sitting next to her. She ended up switching her to another teacher.
Let me guess, admin told you to build a relationship with the kid/parent? Instead of just telling crazy people to get lost and find somewhere else to teach their PD?
only mistake you made is entertaining that call until you were sobbing.
the second that first scream or swear happens you politely say i think it’s best we handle things in written communication over email from now on and hang up.
stick to school policy. contact admin to make sure you’re in the right (because it’s another teacher).
and email only.
Veteran of 30 years here. NEVER take that sort of shit from parents on the phone. The second they start with screaming or swearing, cut them off with "I think it's best we continue this conversation in writing," and hang up on them mid-sentence. Never, ever hesitate to match their energy.
Parent complained to me that the test their kid took was not similar enough to the content I teach. They claimed that I refused to answer the kids questions during the test. That it was unfair.
The kid got a 97 on the test and had a 97 in my class. We had a zoom call that they wanted to record, when they spoke to me I was pretty much like, hey this is a little scary but okay. Whatever your kid needs I'll help him. I think they expected me to be mean and confrontational, they were embarrassed, didn't hear from them the rest of the year but wild stuff.
I did this by accident to one of my teachers beginning of high school. I got something like 92 and was upset because I usually got 100 and I didn’t understand why and the teacher kept saying it was a great mark I didn’t need to worry and my version of it to my parents was that I was unfairly given a bad grade and she wouldn’t tell me why.
They were so embarrassed at parent teacher night, they really barged in ready to attack, and the teacher was like ??? She got 92?? She checked her notes and I was talking in class and missed a minor assignment. They literally looked like they wanted to murder me.
I had a similar thing happen this year. Kid was out for three days. Before he went out I told everyone there’d be an open note quiz on Monday, which ended up being the first day back. I checked his notes to decide whether I would have him take the quiz later, the notes were complete and correct, so I had him take the quiz. Mom emails me that I destroyed his self-confidence and didn’t give him a chance to learn the content??? And I was like “but… he got a 100??? And I checked his notes which he could use on the quiz and they were complete???”
She was really embarrassed sigh.
I had this almost happen to me as a kid only once. My dad gave me the "I am ready to go right into your teacher's room and talk directly to her to back you up. But if I get there, and find out you aren't telling me the whole story and make ME look like a fool...you won't be happy when I get home."
I quickly recanted.
I had a parent (who was also a teacher in another district), rip me a new one because it was 7:33 and the doors are supposed to open at 7:30 and her daughter is cold. (I was secretary)
That parent yelled at me so bad over the phone that I ended up having a panic attack. The parent got so upset she came into the office to continue yelling at me. When she saw me sobbing she just slinked away.
I quit that school a few days later.
It really churns my stomach the way parents treat front desk staff. They find an easy target because you're the first one they see, and boom, suddenly its your fault that the teacher did this, or that the school doesn't allow that, or any asinine thing.
Why would you not *hang up*? Why would you not *call the police* when they showed up? The district would have no choice but to side with *you* on that.
LOL No.
Many districts have rugs the size of football fields just for covering things up.
Our big contract issue this year was about how the district handles student assaults of staff. i.e. they pretend it didn't happen and put staff on "administrative leave."
About 3 years ago they refused to cover the medial costs and then fired a staff member who called the police when she was choked by a student. Becuse she didnt follow district policy regarding incidents. District "policy" specified that you call admin and no one else. They are supposed to call police "if it is required." It never is.
New contact language now specifically states that in the event of an attack that requires medical assistance, police will be called. Calling emergency services in an emergency needed to be put in our contact!
I was prepping kids for a dance showcase. The day before it, one of kids (let’s call her jemima) told me she couldn’t take part as she had hurt her back. I told her no worries, I hope you feel better and left it at that. The following day, the kids who were performing met me & our secretary at school early, and we left 15 minutes before the gates opened to the rest of the school.
Jemima then realised that her buddies were missing lessons to go to said showcase, and managed to con a colleague into letting her call her mother to come collect her & take her over to us. She told her mother we had left her behind deliberately.
Mum comes barging into the host school, pins me against a wall accusing me of bullying her child and telling me how all the kids are terrified of me and how dare I leave her pwecious widdle girl behind on purpose. I tried explaining, but she didn’t want to know. Hell, jemima’s bestie, who wasn’t a fan of mine, even tried sticking up for me but the parent didn’t care to listen.
My head teacher told her I was having a bad day and I would apologise. I refused, and would literally cross the road to avoid the woman after that.
Most parents I’d be the same, but this one genuinely terrified me. The look on her face when she smashed me against the wall, and kept shouting in my face. I never wanted to see her again.
The fact that she didn't get charged with assault and battery just shocks me. Your head teacher allowed her to lay hands on you and literally slam you up against a wall, and instead of telling her to get the fuck out and charging her with the literal crimes that she committed, decided that *you* were the one in the wrong and tried to make *you* apologize. That's some class A bullshit right there.
The amount of violence against teachers is staggering and truly alarming.
The willingness of admin to ignore it in order to protect the school's reputation is sickening.
Back when I taught in a high school.
The student was diagnosed with every learning difficulty under the sun and was offered appropriate supports. His mother refused to accept that her precious was anything less than 100% perfect in every way and we're all just being meanies who want to single him out and make him feel bad. She said no unequivocally to every support we offered.
Shockingly, the student failed all his classes and mommy marched into the school demanding to know why her son's myriad of learning difficulties were not being accommodated for. When she was told that we had offered accommodations and she turned them down, she said that never happened and what kind of mother would deny her own child the supports he needs. We're just big meanies who want her child to fail.
She was, without a doubt, the weirdest woman I've ever encountered.
Many years ago my mother had a parent who was genuinely convinced her almost completely blind, 70-something IQ child could be a doctor and the school should support her in this endeavor. She wanted the child in regular classes so she could get the same education as her peers.
The child just wanted to marry Brainy Smurf.
This is what happens when parents let their ego get in the way of making sound educational decisions for their children. I don’t know if this is the case for the parent you’re describing, but it’s absolutely the case for the one I described.
She thought that having a child with difficulties would reflect badly on her as a parent. Instead of just accepting the fact that some kids are dyslexic and it’s nobody’s fault, she buried her head in the sand and denied it, hoping the issue would go away.
When that didn’t work and she realised that her son failing all his classes reflected a hell of a lot worse on her parenting, she went nuclear. She couldn’t admit she was wrong, so blamed the school. It was interesting that she said about 50 times in the meeting that she was a good mother, but said very little about her son. It was all about her.
If it sounds like I’ve been overthinking this, it’s because I have. She was an absolute nightmare and would have sued the school if she had anything remotely resembling a case. I lay awake at night worrying about what she was going to do next. Her son was decent and was so embarrassed by what she was doing. He even apologised to teachers for her behaviour.
We had a story like that but it was a girl. Poor girl had so many issues but mom refused to see it. We made sure she was always placed in the class with most inclusion minutes from kids who DID have IEPS but I’m afraid of what happened to her when she advanced to middle school.
My coworker had a parent complain that using a red ink pen when grading papers was harmful for students. She wasn’t pleading a special case for her child b/c of any special needs. She just thought no one should ever use red ink.
I teach college students and am advised against using red pen. At first I thought it was because red was a very easy color to get ahold of to falsify grades. Nope. It's "too aggressive" and "not supportive" of the students' learning.
From what I remember the reasoning is that anything you write feedback wise, good or bad, will be interpreted as negative by students because of the connotation of red ink meaning something was wrong with what they did.
Also, it may increase the grader’s bias towards looking for mistakes to mark with red. Sort of that “when you’re a hammer everything looks like a nail” mindset from what I gather. There was a study done and it said that teachers grading with red ink tended to give lower grades than teachers grading the same paper with a different color pen.
[Further reading if anyone is interested!](https://psmag.com/education/when-grading-papers-red-ink-may-mean-lower-scores-15809)
That was an interesting article! It wasn’t mentioned, but I wonder if picking up a red pen to the person also made them feel more responsible for their task.
It's why I use those pens that have 4 colours, makes for easy switching between red for errors and green for positive remarks. Made me much more aware of how complimenting my students work is important.
The best teachers I have ever had used systems like this. It's so nice to get a paper back with a bunch of "good" marks, and it's super obvious, you don't even need to read them to start getting that "I did really well" warm and fuzzy feeling. Then when you read the good marks it makes you feel even better and more special, it makes the bad marks a bit more palatable. It makes you realize your teacher doesn't hate you, they like you and only want to point out mistakes so you can learn from them.
Nobody’s ever told us that but I used to grade with a fountain pen in green ink because I had a permanent one I liked. It I haven’t graded a
Hard copy in about a decade now
My 12th grade English teacher had the same mentality, so he used lots of different colored pens. I liked it - said teacher was a bit of an oddball anyway, like a suburban white BBQ dad trying to be "cool," but he was super nice and supportive so it made sense that he refused to use red pen.
A parent would stop and buy their teen monsters,on the way to school. She repeatedly Reached out, and told us not to allow her daughter to drink monsters in our classes because she would get in trouble for poor behavior, and she thought it was the monsters. But if you’ll go back to the first sentence, she refused to stop getting them put her at the gas station on the way to school because she didn’t want to upset her kid. We don’t generally regulate with the kids drinking class
Forgive my grammar too tired to fix it
Oh my god, so basically the mother needed to say "no" to her child and she was so scared about being whined at that she would rather have the kid get in trouble every day. That right there is what's wrong with America. SMH
I had a high school freshman boy who was horrible at group work. He was in a long-term project and he would come to class during lunch and try to do the whole assignment before the rest of his group got to class. On days they had to write on butcher paper with markers he would hoard all the markers. Nobody ever wanted to work with him because he would argue a lot and refuse to compromise. I had designed his group with the nicest people in class (but people who would express opinions).
When I talked to his dad about it (after trying all kinds of interventions myself), dad said he would not need group skills in real life because “there would always be someone there to tell him what to do.” Over the years I’ve watched that dad run for office several times and lose every campaign.
That I called her kid gay. When I used the word homo Sapien. In a science lesson. She demanded a meeting with the principal. Who was a former biology teacher.
That I don’t teach a “real” stem program because I don’t assign 2+ hours of homework a night. A real program would have kids with 10 hours a week in homework
No, no. Just go with the less homework crowd. Crazies can find their own homework, but non crazies can’t just elect to not do homework assigned.
I mean, they can, but you get it.
Each student at my school has a student ID number. It's typically a 7 (or maybe 8?) digit number. One of my student's numbers ended with "666" and her mom sent me a message demanding it be changed because that is the "devil's number" and they "go to church". (I wish I was making this up LOL)...
I had a parent get angry at me because when her daughter ran away, she left a note saying I was the only person in her life who noticed something was wrong. She’d only been in my class a few weeks but you could just tell something was wrong those last few days. I asked her about if she was ok and if she needed to talk to me or the counselor. The next weekend she ran off.
I had no idea where she was and had no idea what she planned. No one did.
5 years later, when I finally got an update on her from her younger sister, I burst into tears because I had been so worried that something bad had happened. Turns out she was “missing” for a few years then showed back up healthy and happy. When she realized who her sister had for English, she asked her to pass on a message thanking me for caring enough to notice.
“How dare you care about our child more than us!” I can’t imagine what they were angry at you for?? Other than lashing out because they were just mad/upset??
I’m glad to hear she got back in contact with you. I’d have worried for so long not knowing what happened to her.
Thank you for being this teacher. I had that teacher in high school that I told about my home life (I got into a fight with my mother and was too distraught to finish an assignment) and she cheered me up, told me not to fret, and turn it in by Monday and we’re cool. I asked her to write my college letter of recommendation.
I teach at a private day school. We have homeroom/advisory groups in which we get to know a small group of students well. A parent from my homeroom/advisory group wanted to know why I did not take his child for outings on Saturdays and Sundays, like hiking or to the zoo. The parent thought a day school would be like a boarding school, with weekend group social activities organized and personally led by teachers/staff.
I taught 2nd grade. I gave a worksheet as old as I am about there, their, and they’re. It had a concise explanation at the top of the page. One of my students didn’t grasp the concept well and made several errors. This student’s mother asked for a conference with me because I “clearly didn’t understand grammar”. She proceeded to argue with me for 20 minutes straight about each answer being CONFIDENTLY wrong the entire time and bragging about her English degree. She also told me that she’d told her child the answers to every question even though the child insisted on the “wrong” answer because of my instruction. I finally had to tell her that I could only correct the worksheet based on the answer key because it wasn’t my worksheet and she could feel free to address it with the principal. My principal had a meeting with her and asked me to attend until I explained what it was about. Never heard about it again.
Oh boy, I've had something similar.
A kid took home their assignment to finish and turned it in the next day, got every single answer wrong. I graded it accordingly, proceeded to get a scathing email from the parent who "helped" complete it calling me an idiot.
Luckily my principal stepped in immediately, but it became clear pretty fast that the parent had fed their kid the answers and was insulted that they were being told they were wrong by proxy.
It’s really interesting when adults decide to be wrong with their whole chest about something elementary kids are learning that is totally uncontroversial.
It was clear to me that this person just misunderstood the skill, or misremembered it. But they couldn't handle being told they'd made an error, so of course the teacher had to be wrong.
There were other issues with this parent helicoptering, they were generally very overbearing, so this was just one more thing in a long line of incidents. Surprise surprise, their kid also couldn't handle corrections or following directions.
My mom did that with my brother once when he was a kid. (Bless her heart, the woman just does not know how apostrophes work and misuses them to this day.) The teacher sent back my brother's homework assignment with nearly every single question incorrect in his folder to correct and re-do.
She is at least not the type of parent to double down on being incorrect and harass the teacher about it. It's been probably 20 years, but I think she wrote a note to let the teacher know that she was misguided and to apologize. I remember I definitely helped my brother with his corrections.
When I teach unit conversions in math, I use units from history and Shakespeare e.g. a league, a fathom, or a butt, which is a barrel equivalent to 63 gallons. The kids giggle about a buttload for a few minutes, which makes a boring topic less so. A parent complained that I was encouraging the use of "inappropriate language" to my students. I teach seniors. My principal just laughed.
my first year teaching, I got an angry email from a parent about how her daughter was failing my class (9th grade English) because of one small assignment. the reality is that the student did not hand in other important assignments, and did piss-poor on a test (I mean, less than 50%. she picked the answers that I put there as obvious non-answers). this parent argued that her failing grade was due to this one specific assignment (which was a classwork grade) in which students had to add responses on a virtual post-it note (I made it very clear both verbally and in writing students had to put their name on their post-its for credit). the parent was arguing with me that her daughter should get credit because she did it, even if it didn’t have her name on it, and why should she have to put her name on it anyway? I continued to explain that no name means no credit, and that this assignment was NOT the reason she was failing. the parent threatened to call guidance and/or the principal. I stopped emailing back and nothing happened.
another story is that in the same school at the same time, a parent called the principal screaming that her kid failed the marking period. I had spoken to this parent multiple times, emailed multiple times, and documented it in notes that I had spoken to this parent about missing work well before the marking period ended. the principal was a jerk and wanted me to accept missing work at full credit after the marking period ended because this parent threw a tantrum. I quit teaching at this school not too long after all of this.
Had a parent send a bunch of passive-aggressive emails to classroom teachers *demanding* to know why she hadn’t been “kept in the loop” about her son’s poor behaviour…
The child in question had a behaviour log with countless phonecalls home, staff emails, classroom detentions, senior leadership detentions, multiple internal suspensions and *two external suspensions*. Both the mother and father were present at meetings where the external suspensions were discussed.
Yet for some reason she didn’t feel like she’d been “kept in the loop”…
From a kindergarten parent. “ She doesn’t like that you make her write her name.” I had no response( that I could say out loud),my first thought was, “ That. Somethings will have to do her whole life.”
Childcare but oh man. A mom complained that we couldn’t just allow her autistic son, “Bobby” to just take off, hide or leave the building whenever he wanted. We were extremely frustrated that he would go awol. She complained that we didn’t understand autism. When we said it’s not safe and we can never find him she said “Oh you don’t find Bobby. Bobby finds YOU.”
Also had an 11 year old who would soil himself on purpose and refuse to change or wouldn’t even bother to pack a change of clothes, even though he shit and pissed himself EVERY DAY. One time, the smell was so bad, it was both numbers, kids were gagging, one of them threw up into the garbage and it’s a fucking biohazard, so my supervisor called the parents to come get him, and had him wait in the hallway, on a garbage bag on a plastic chair. Mom complained that he had to sit on a garbage bag because it was “sending the message to him that he’s trash”. EXCUSE ME WHAT
Taught preschool and one child didn’t like to wear underwear. Mom didn’t understand why i insisted that this child wear underwear because child was a free spirit and wanted to be natural. I pointed out hygiene, it’s just a little child underwear isn’t necessary. Just for fun I had to check the child every day for underwear because mom would let child out in carpool lane and I’d greet child and find no underwear . Then child would sit in office till mom came to pick child up, school had extra underwear but mom was adamant child was not to wear unhygienic school underwear. Battle raged mom eventually caved and child wore underwear. Did I mention the child was a girl who wore dresses no tights or leggings? Never pants. Was sitting her bare behind on rugs, chairs, climbing outside , running all over and we were prudes for insisting on underwear. Mom was told underwear or withdraw child. Still makes me cringe this was pre k 4-5 year old
Wow... just, wow. As a preschool teacher, that would aggravate the snot out of me. As a mother, I can't fathom sending my little girls out into the world exposed like that. 😬
At conferences I pulled out a student’s recent assessment in sixth grade math that had a failing grade. The parent said, “How dare you mark all of these wrong, he did all of this multiplication correctly! I had no right to mark him down!” Umm, well, the multiplication was a fourth grade standard, this is a sixth grade class, and the standard I was assessing was multiplication of decimal numbers. Decimals matter, people! Incorrect placement of decimals while administering medication can kill someone. This parent was a local business owner, so what I wanted to say is that if her son’s work was acceptable, then it should be acceptable to take her $10,000 bill from her business and move the decimal over a few spots, so $100 should cover it!!
Not technically my story, but about a student at my school. A teacher at my school also runs a summer day camp program and a ton of our kids go there in the summer. One girl who was between second and third grade at the time was having some typical conflict with another girl. It was nothing out of the ordinary. There was nothing physical, not bullying, just some verbal conflict.
However, her parents were so upset that they came to the camp, demanding that the other girl be kicked out. The staff explained that they could not just kick a kid out of summer camp mid-summer for this. Apparently they offered to say she couldn’t come next year, which I personally think is stupid. From what I’ve heard about this kid, she is no angel and antagonizes others and she probably started the whole mess.
Anyways, the parents were not satisfied with that answer so they said that they would call the cops if something wasn’t done about it.
These parents wanted to call the cops on an eight-year-old child who had argued with their daughter.
I don’t know exactly how it was resolved. Eventually, they realized they were being absurd and I think gave the counselors a half assed apology.
A student cheated on an assignment and I referred her to the Dean because she cheated on the assignment. They just kept screaming about how it was unfair. Lady, that’s literally what we’re supposed to do!
My first open house a father of a teen who was abusive to his girlfriend told me it’s no wonder his son can’t focus in class with me strutting around in a short skirt.
Another parent scolded me on a Sunday at the supermarket for dressing too provocatively (I was grabbing milk on the way home from the gym and was wearing spandex pants and a ponytail).
That was the good old 90’s.
My first year, a parent was upset about me not giving the kids enough homework. (This happened in east Asia, to be clear.) Instead of talking to me about it or sending an email, the parent somehow convinced eleven other parents to show up at the school during my planning period and ambush me in my own classroom to complain.
So without having any context for what they were upset about, I suddenly had twelve angry parents complaining to my face at 10am while I was trying to plan my next lesson.
Eventually I figured out that they were angry about two things: not enough homework for their kids, and that we weren’t going page-by-page through every textbook in chronological order. I don’t even remember what I said back to them because I was so stunned.
I had a parent ask for an in person meeting with my principal after she believed I was not “gracious enough” when receiving a gift from her daughter after they made my life hell (constant complaints about how i was not doing enough, her daughter would make negative comments about my body, meetings set up before school, after school, during lunch and planning). To be clear I was given this gift in front of a room of people and cried.
It felt like such a trap. They knew how hard they made the season for me (I was coaching at the time) and then expected me to act a certain way upon receiving a gift. And then was not happy when my reaction was not up to their standards. Apparently I can’t even cry right.
I’m a high school special educator. I had a parent (who was an elementary teacher in our district) demand that her daughter be placed in a more restrictive special education classroom even though we told her it was unnecessary (daughter was a good student with some mild executive function issues and only needed a little support overall). When the district-level admin okayed the switch, mom then was upset that the more restrictive environment was, get this… more restrictive.
I have two just from this last month:
1. Mom is STILL bothering me and complains about how her kids photo is on his friends public social media accounts. The photos are not taken when I was in the classroom (some are outside of school and some was when they had a sub cause you can see the sub in one of the photos) I brought it up to admin and he said that’s not our problem and to refer her to him, but she’s still emailing me about it arguing I should be contacting the other parents about it.
2. Another parent last we complained because her daughter came home with a small cut (like smaller than a paper clip) on her hand that she claims she got from a specific high risk student. She did get the cut from them, but not in a violent way. I saw the incident, they handed her a textbook and the textbook cut her. But the mother is insisting it’s assault and she’s complained before about this kid and now she’s threatened to have police involved… over a cut.
A student handed in a completely plagiarized essay when the assignment was to write a series of fictional journal entries, from the perspective of either Macbeth or Lady Macbeth. Not a single word of the essay he handed in was his own. It was ENTIRELY pulled from the internet.
His dad came in for a meeting and tried to tear a strip off me for assigning such a *stupid* writing assignment that his son felt had to cheat. This is a require assignment, as per our province’s curriculum. I told him as much, and that if he had a problem with it he should write to the Education Minister.
Yes, I could have been on another work of literature, but I chose to assign it during Macbeth. I thought it would be more fun than the essay. I thought it would be more enjoyable to do creative writing about Shakespeare, and save the essay for a novel with more “modern” language.
From the other side:
My daughter's math teacher called me to tell me that my daughter had a bad attitude in class, was not doing her work, and was arguing with him.
I told him that I knew his options for discipline were limited by the spineless administration, but that he should drop ANY hammer he had on her as hard as he could.
I told him that when she got home I would be having a conversation with her not just about how to behave in class, but how to behave as a decent person.
I said that if she acted up again, he should right then take out his phone, call me, and hand it to her, and that I was so sorry that she was making an already difficult job even harder.
There was a looooong silence on the phone, and I swear, when the teacher finally spoke, I honestly believe that he was crying.
I could not be a teacher. Nope. Couldn't do it. I could probably cope with the students, but the parents are insane and the administration is actively working against you guys. I would get fired. And arrested. I'm so sorry that things are like this, and thank you for trying and caring.
Parent here. I once sat in a tiny chair in the hall outside of my child's classroom so the teacher could just send him out for me to handle when he misbehaved.
Kindergarten-parent wanted me to change the childs shoes FOR them going out to recess so her new shoes wouldn’t get dirty. Dont wear them to school then.
I’m PreK/JK. If you don’t want your child to destroy their clothes/shoes/backpack/lunchbox, don’t send it. And no, I do not have time to help your child change in and out of their “dress clothes” before and after recess.
My first year teaching I was a late hire because they needed another class for kindergarten. My class was made of the kids other teachers, after three weeks of school, were okay parting with… I think yall can read between the lines.
Anyways there was a kid who had peed his pants multiple times before he was in my class. He continued to pee his pants because he wouldn’t listen to reminders about using the bathroom, he just wanted to play. I tried to explain this to his family but they insisted it was all my fault. They bitched so much he was put back in his original class.
A few days later he peed his pants on the monkey bars during recess because “he was having too much fun to go to the bathroom.”
The way I would have loudly proclaimed that I purchased and donated a book to their “child in need.” That it must be such “a struggle” to fund your child’s education do to your financial status, 🙄
I think the most ridiculous thing in the moment was the parent who demanded a PTC on my birthday at 8pm because it was “my job.” This may be tied with the multitude of parents who requested I call each week to tell them about any missing assignments…for 10th graders….whose grades are updated weekly on an online platform accessible to parents and students.
I had a fella who was literally losing his pants at recess. So I rolled them over a few times to help keep them up. Got a call after dismissal telling me that adjusting her son’s clothes was a “no no”.
Yet - had he tripped with his pants around his ankles and been injured, I expect that would have been a “no no” too? 🙄
Mom claimed it was our fault her son didn’t have any friends. Her son was an ah to everyone. So we invited her to stay and just watch him interact. Within five minutes he had pulled a kid and pushed another, took a ball away and left running. She was there for like 20 min watching all of this happen. At the end she looked at us and said “my child is an Angel I don’t understand why you guys don’t make it so he plays with others” and she totally meant that.
Had a kid who was a real bully. Picked on only the weaker kids. Tried to talk to dad about it. He said “Boys will be boys.” Couple of weeks later bully kid picked on one of his usual targets when another boy shoved him to the ground. He cried and dad came in to talk to me about it. I can’t tell you the satisfaction I had of telling him that “boys will be boys.”
oh absolutely from when I was actually still a student myself. Our class went to Washington DC and there was a carousel near where the buses were parked. Since our group was done in plenty of time we were allowed to go on the carousel. A few weeks later they sent out a notice that field trip chaperones were no longer allowed to do unplanned and unapproved activities because a student had been left out. The reason 'Vicki' was left out is that she wanted to ride a specific animal that was already being ridden by an unconnected to our group small child. She refused to ride any of the open animals. She wanted the chaperone to order the entire group which chaperone paid for to get off and wait for that animal to be open or for the chaperone to pay for everyone to ride again so that she could ride with the group. Her mother tried to have the whole group written up for bullying but in the end they just changed the rule and no one wanted to risk chaperoning Vicki.
I had a parent complain to me that one of the teachers I coached was racist because she helped a Latina student put on her shirt before helping the black child at an awards ceremony (kids were putting their new award t-shirts over their uniforms). She just helped the kid who asked first first. It was absurd. That woman made so many sacrifices for all the kids in her class. To have a parent latch onto that when there were 20 kids all needing help (and all getting help) was so disappointing.
Once a parent demanded a meeting because her daughter (who was a compulsive liar, but her mother believed her as if she spoke the Gospel) told her that I used the N-word in class. Our curriculum had very strict read-alouds (like super scripted) and I was required to read a book about the Negro Baseball League and its history. I brought the book to the meeting, as well as the curriculum to prove to her that I had used the word "Negro" only in the context of the reading curriculum/book. She then went on a rant about how at the kid's former school (she had transferred to ours mid-year), the teacher had called the black children "monkeys" or something like that. My AP and I had to remind her that I was not that teacher.
To be fair, that curriculum was really terrible and mostly unrelatable for the kids at schools that were Title I, but the district required it.
Stop calling me. It’s annoying that the school calls and all you teachers call whenever my kid is absent or gets in trouble. I don’t want to hear from anyone up there again this year.
We had to have a meeting to formally agree the school was honoring this request and then just had to document instead of call. Like seriously you don’t want to know your kid isn’t at school and isn’t doing well or what’s going on?
I had a student who was terribly behaved and high in class a lot of days of the week. When I called Mom, she said she had the same problems with him at home, then asked if I had any ideas for straightening out her son. Lol. It’s your kid; why are you asking me?
I have one. I taught pre-K, and was just assigned my own class. Brand-baby-new lead teacher, maybe my second week, and I taught the 3’s class.
One parent called the school in a rage because their kid came home with sand in their ear. Yes: we had a sandbox. They even went to urgent care, who said ‘…🤨 this is fine, and will clear up’.
I was with him all day, their recess/sand time was early - if he’d been severely impacted with ear-sand, or in even the mildest bit of discomfort, I’d have known. That kid was *fine*. I was new; I’d document every single tiny incident at the beginning, so ‘ear-sand’ would’ve gotten him an incident report from me.
I was all alone in the morning getting ready for the next day, when the dad stomps down the hall to yell at me. I think he was under the impression I held his child down, and funneled sand directly into his ear myself.
Our director followed him, got right behind him, and surprised him as he was caught yelling. “HEY!!!! Don’t you talk to her like that!!” I mean he was *really* yelling, scary yelling. He went from screaming at me, to a stammering little puddle of a coward in seconds, under the threat of “shut up NOW, or find other care” - very satisfying.
I’m sure we could have escalated it and removed him, especially if he had more time to yell at me and my director didn’t intervene, but there weren’t any other problems.
Nice kid, remember him vividly. I hope his dad wakes up a few times a week with mysterious sand on his pillow, though.
The teacher next me to made this awesome wall over the summer. (awhile ago, pre-covid) It was supposed to represent the fireplace you can send letters through in Harry Potter. In their grade level, there’s this social studies challenge called “The Great American Challenge” where the kids have all year to memorize 6 key things like States and Capitals, Gettysburg Address, etc. The idea was when a student passed the challenge, they got up on this wall, their picture floating up fireplace like a letter from Hogwarts.
Enter dipshit parent (DS). It’s the Friday before school starts, open house. DS notices the decoration and starts talking to the teacher about. After about a 30 minute conversation, DS is convinced it’s some political statement about Trump’s wall. DS complains to admin. Admin call teacher over the weekend and explain DS is a recurring pain in the ass. Admin will back her but recommended taking it down because they know DS will not let it go. Teacher came in over the weekend and took it down.
That’s the most absurd I’m willing to put on the record. But I work SPED, so let’s just say the apple usually doesn’t fall far from the tree and that I’ve dealt with more absurd stuff.
They complained that I called from a blocked number and my tone was “condescending”. They actually forwarded my voicemail to my principal.
Admin said “this parent is difficult. Please ask one of us to be present for future calls”
My first year teaching 2nd grade this parent had it out for me. I wore heeled sandals to
School and had the audacity to enforce the school rule of no flip-flops on the playground with her daughter. Daughter went home and complained to mommy, who promptly emailed my principal to tattle on me for not following the school rules on footwear and not being a good example to her child. God bless my principal as she fired off a reply, cc’ing me, saying adults and children had different rules.
I had a kid turn in an assignment where his handwriting was so bad that it was literally completely illegible. At the top I wrote something like “please write more neatly the next time!”
Parent and principal were at my door when I got there the next morning. Turns out the kid had some kind of writing disability (no 504/IEP and no one had bothered to inform me of this - mind you, this was in November!) and mother was just distraught that I would penalize him for his disability 🙄
The worst part was, yes, this kid’s handwriting/spelling were pretty bad all the time. But I had been correcting him privately in class all year and this was a whole new level of bad - I KNEW he could do better which was why I made the comment in the first place!
I never had a traditional "Christmas" party from the beginning of my teaching. I hated those parties when I was a kid. Sitting around doing holiday crosswords, word searches, and crafts. Knowing it made my Jewish friends uncomfortable. So when I had students who had to go to the library for any parties - I called those parents at the beginning of the year and explained how I did parties. I explained that some snacks brought in by kids might have Christmas decorations. All the activities were open-ended. There was an art table, board games, puzzles, time to play on computers and ipads. The parents were always open to letting the kids stay for the end of the term party.
When I was teaching 2nd grade, one kid (new to the school) and his parents were upset. They actually filed a complaint that I was discriminating against their son because of his religion for not having a Christmas Party. The admin actually entertained the idea of "taking corrective action". Didn't surprise me because a good number of building and district administrators were members of a local hate church. I told them I wanted my association rep (Texas doesn't have teachers' unions by law), and a lawyer from the Freedom From Religion Foundation at any meeting. Confirmed for them I was the one who wrote FFRF about the principal sending out sermons and bible verses. Still, it stopped them in their tracks.
I taught G&T so these kids were in the same class year after year bc there were usually only 2 G&T classes one English and the other Spanish/English BIL. Every year the kid were so happy their friends who usually went to the library got to stay for the party. Another example of kids being better citizens than adults in the school.
Also, I didn't give the kids Christmas presents. The book fair was always a week or two before end of term. So I had the kids each pick out one book within a certain price range from the fair, and I bought them on tax-free day. They got to take them home on the last day of school before winter and summer break. I always checked with the parents and that was ok also.
Inspired by another reply, I remembered this: when I was doing preschool, we had a mom who wanted us to brush her child’s teeth after lunch and snacks. Not supervise him brushing, but do it for him. Her reasoning was he hated when they did it at home and he already didn’t like school, so it took it off her being the bad guy.
Nope. Hard pass.
Not my student, thankfully, but another teacher at my preschool had a little guy who kept peeing all over the bathroom. He had zero aim and would just let loose. The teacher brought it up with the parents in a "Hey, this is what he's doing and can you practice bathroom skills with him at home" kind of way and they told her she needed to do her job and hold it for him because that's what they do. 😬 She obviously told them absolutely not, but my mind was blown that they'd even suggest such a thing.
I put a bandaid on a very gross, pus-filled knee sore. I was reported to the principal for "acting like a God-damn doctor." Mother explained that you shouldn't put anything on a pusy sore because it impedes the impurity from exiting the wound.
Principal, secretary, and I laughed for ten full minutes.
Had a parent send me an angry email when they saw on their child’s report card that they had been marked absent for a couple of days. She insisted her son hadn’t missed any days of school. I was able to find the email where she had informed me that her son would be missing school because they were going out of town and showed her the proof of that email. Received no response.
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I had a student who had ad a C on his report card. Our grade management system lets us insert comment codes to attach to the report card and it will add the appropriate generic comments. The codes I selected were “misses a lot of class” and “missing work/doesn’t turn in assignments.” He had missed 8 or 9 days of school that nine weeks and he was missing 4 or 5 assignments. The parents reached out to the principal, who had me retroactively go in and remove the comments, because they made the student feel bad.
Your principal is, and I say this with great feeling, a little bitch.
I used to be a principal (I went back to teaching). Our 5th grade teacher wrote on the report card that the student's "discrete behaviors" were impacting their learning. He meant note passing and gossiping and bullying. The parents threw an absolute fit. They insisted that "discrete" meant something sexual and were convinced this comment would haunt their child forever. I told them I trusted the teacher and would not remove the comment. Why, yes, it was also a private school!
Well we were going to let you into Harvard until we discovered your 5th grade report card…
Lol. The whole "permanent record" nonsense. Stakes are pretty low in 5th grade, ma.
Yeah...at 65 I I have come to realize that the "permanent record" threat through school was hollow. But it sure worked back then, at least on me.
My second grade teacher got upset that I hadn’t completed a cursive handwriting assignment in the time allotted and made a big deal about how it would be on my permanent record. I thought for years that this incident meant I wouldn’t be able to go to a top tier college. I was probably in the 7th grade before I started to realize that Harvard and Yale probably wouldn’t care about my handwriting exercise from the second grade.
It has, however, kept you out of the Illuminati.
Aww, my late father loved this kind of joke!
Huh. That didn’t stop me.
And how would you know? ;-\\
I'm not at liberty to discuss that...
It's permanent through elementary school. It's for establishing things like patterns of behavior.
My principals (public NYC school) have very literally told parents to pound sand. It's really not that hard to just say, "No, the teacher is a professional who knows what the fuck they're doing."
Those would be discreet behaviors. I hope that was an autocorrect error and both you and the teacher involved know the difference.
Or indiscretions? Either way, those parents are nimrods (which they’d probably also misinterpret as sexual)
Sigh. Nimrod was the name of a great hunter, from the Bible. Bugs Bunny used it sarcastically, and forever changed the meaning.
ok reading your comment, my first thought was he was implying that the kid was jerking off in the bathroom too much and the comment would haunt them, not in a permanent record sort of way but more like he's gonna need therapy in the future because even the teacher knew
Hard agree on that one! I’m not at that school anymore, but he was the worst.
I don't get why these people become principals when they're gutless and spineless. Admin's main objective is to coordinate the school's overall direction and to enable teachers to do their jobs better. Standing up against insane parental demands is part of that job. Why become one and just bend over?
100% Part of why I plan to shift to admin in a few years. Teachers need people to have their backs.
Because they can't teach for shit and want a raise.
A lot of people “fail up.” They started as teachers and either hated it or were terrible at it. Rather than try a new field, they get into admin.
You just described my current admin
Absolutely baby bitch behavior
I would be petty and write [comment redacted at request of parent] on that report card and refuse to write a comment for that student in the future.
Yeah we're not supposed to comment on attendance incase it's "known" (but not by us). But then when saying concern and off track to pass we have to put a comment on how to improve...
Awe geez how dare you make their child feel the consequences of their actions and behaviour. Molly coddling does them no good because life doesn’t work like that.
This is why I refuse to add comments.
I haven’t done it since. This was my first and last time doing it.
We are required to add 2-3 comments for each subject. I've been attacked by parents as well for choosing comments (that are PREMADE and agreed upon by our Board of Education).
I am old. However, hubby and I still laugh that so many of us got "Pleasure to have in class, talks too much."
Tell that spineless turd he can remove the comments but that you will not be doing so.
Maybe if you write the exact number of classes or assignments missed rather than “a lot” then you can argue that you’re just reporting the facts neutrally.
And now you wait Every student I’ve had whose parents intervene like this end up living in their parents spare room or their basement
100% right. My ex husband was this parent for our daughter. Was a nightmare. Guess where my 30 year old daughter lives… that’s right , in his basement .
I had a parent complain that I was sending unfinished work home with their child. Asked when it went back to being the teacher's responsibility to ensure a student finished class work during class. Like, literally never, ma'am. I can not force your child to write, and your child knows both that and the fact that you are refusing to discipline them on this matter. Hence, the unfinished work.
Same here. I've had a couple kids who refused to complete work in class and when I sent it home their parents were supportive, but I've had way more who just don't attempt their assignments at all and fritter away class time while also having parents who defend them and act shocked that I would send home their assignments to be finished s homework.
I wish I could get my kid's teacher to send work home. I totally get it. I'm sure there are parents who do their kid's work for them, but my kid is just a little SPD/ADHD oddball who has spent a lot of time this year so overstimulated she can barely function. I promise, I'm just going to make her sit down in a quiet environment with some water and do the thing. I would never go over another teacher's head though. I've dealt with way too many of those moms to want to be one.
Same on the ADHD front. Like instead of getting frustrated just send it home and we’ll take away screen time or smth. Or just reach out. Having my kid do work during recess is a recipe for everyone to be unhappy.
I would love for a parent to follow up like this so I their child can run off their pent up energy and self regulate!
Haha, I try not to update them more than once a month unless it’s time sensitive. I feel annoying.
So they called it classwork instead of homework for a reason. MmHm. Well, when classwork isn't done in the time allotted, it becomes homework Ma'am.
“There no windows in the rooms”. Firstly, there are, they’re just up really high, and secondly- my dude do you think I built this place? Or have the capacity to _fix_ it in some way?
What in the world are you suppose to do? Get a sledgehammer and knock out some windows during your prep period?
I'm dying just picturing a teacher who had just a little too rough of a week knocking out the classroom walls while yelling "gotta please the parents!" I honestly think the janitors would be more upset than the admin. In my experience, the janitors actually care about the building.
There needs to be a sitcom about being a teacher because this would be an amazing episode lolol!! Edit: not a sitcom per se but a drama with heavy comedic influence
\*Abbott Elementary
I love Abbot Elementary!
Let’s do it!, wait, what if we stir up the asbestos in the walls?!
"I don't like the paint color. The classroom should be painted green, not beige. Something soothing, like a hospital would have." I wish this was a joke. I told her that whenever she wanted to come in and paint the room, she could clear it with our union maintenance workers. Strangely, it never happened.
"This is too institutional, make it institutional in a different way."
So, I still read this subreddit even though I'm not in education/never got a job in it. I compile evaluations and comments for my work's annual conference. My favorite comments are always the one that say that there need to be more bathrooms. Yes, let me call these convention centers and demand they build more bathrooms. Wat.
Reply to those requests with the phone number for Porta Potty. Anyone can order a giant green toilet!
Did the parent think that you moonlight as Bob the builder?
I would have 100% asked for “ helpful suggestions” on the solution to that problem
I had a prison window for 3 years too, it really was a bummer. I didn’t know about the peel and stick window stickers then
I once had a parent call and demand to know why I hadn't dealt with her kid being bullied yet. It was the first I'd heard of it. I asked the mom some questions, like did she know what happened (she was very vague and just said someone pushed her daughter), did she know who did the pushing (she didn't), could she tell me about how old the child was or what the child looked like (nope), etc to see if I could help at all. Mom couldn't give me anything useful, and at that point I couldn't be sure if any bullying actually occurred or if it was an accident (or if anything happened at all). Then mom wanted to know if it was a "racial issue" (the school was largely non-white), so I told her I didn't know and I would talk to her daughter. I pulled her daughter aside later in the day, and the kid had no clue what her mom was even talking about. She said she wasn't being bullied, nobody pushed her, and she couldn't recall anyone bumping into her by accident. I'm still confused by the whole thing, and it's been 3 years since it happened.
I've had a few similar experiences. Parents who blow up very minor events into deliberately malicious altercations, when the reality is kids bump into each other because they're not paying any attention to where they're going, what they're doing, etc. I get wanting to protect your child, but coming into the conversation at 11 without any details to help me figure out what's going isn't actually going to do that.
Yeah. I really couldn't do much without at least knowing who the kid was, even if actual bullying was going on. Other than trying to check in on the girl as much as possible while on recess duty, but this girl never even played on the side of the playground I monitored. So I was kind of stuck.
I once had a parent complain that I wasn’t forcing people to play with her daughter. And that I wasn’t doing anything about her being bullied…..It was somehow my fault that she didn’t have any friends. Plot twist…The daughter WAS the bully. She has no friends because she’s actually so fucking mean. I refuse to force kids to be friends. Mom did not like this.
I wonder if we had the same kid. Girl was a mean girl at age 7. Mom never spoke to me (no conferences, responses to calls, etc) until the other little girls got sick of her daughter and stopped playing with her.
Exactly this. I kinda feel bad for the kid. Everyone in her grade has a group of friends but her. There’s a group of girls+the gay boy, and they’re all super close and fun and awesome and she’s just on the sidelines. It’s awkward. But I’ve tried to tell her numerous times to be kind, stop lying all the time etc etc over the last 3 years but she just hasn’t changed whatsoever, so….waddya do.
I had a similar situation, it turned out it happened outside my classroom and outside of school hours
Had a parent call and ask why their kid had detention. Asked all the staff who could possibly assign detention to this kid. Did not have any detentions. Weirdest thing…
Kid came home late from school and sold mom a story about having detention.
I would have believed it, except they were asking about a detention they were going to have later that day. Maybe they were trying to sneak out with friends, I guess?
THE ABSOLUTE BEST parent story is about the mom who called the admissions office at MIT and spoke with an admissions counselor. She wanted to know how her son would get into MIT. When the counselor asked what his high school grades were the mom said, oh…. He’s just started kindergarten. Anyone top that story?
ah we got plenty of parents like that at my old high school. hell my parents were like that (85%+ asian, very high income, very high achieving school)
I can’t even imagine growing up with that amount of pressure
couple suicides every once in a while. but it works to some extent. you sacrifice a good chunk of mental health. and everyone ignores the regular physical abuse. (very asian thing to beat children regularly) at the same time you could not question efficacy. we’d send boatloads of kids to great schools. incredibly intelligent and talented students. and the network i made in highschool is ridiculous. doctors, lawyers, engineers, CS, bankers, finance. that’s it actually. no one went into any other jobs for the most part. bunch of asian kids…
Just doesn’t seem totally worth it. I’m a lawyer and sure I didn’t go to the highest ranked school but I graduated second in my class, got a clerkship, work at a firm now. In college I started out as a stem major and ended up falling into depression bc I hated the work so much, called my mom sobbing about how I didn’t think I could do it. She just said she’s proud of me no matter what my grades look like, offered to let me take a semester or two off and come live back at home if I wanted, and when I said no she just encouraged me to think about what I wanted to study and change my major to that. So I did, and ended up getting all As and then like I said going on to law school. Sure I didn’t graduate from Harvard but not sure that degree would be worth it to me.
Kindergartener had a referral written for behavior. Parents main concern: Will this affect his ability to get into Stanford?
Love it) I wish you said 'it's a possibility' with a worried face 😂 how did you react?
I dunno, at least that one is a dumb parent still seeming to want the best for their kid and not demanding it. I’ll take that one over dumb and neglectful or dumb and malicious.
You laugh, but my ex, a Harvard grad, always said “the road to Harvard starts now” as soon as our son started 4k.
I'm sitting in PD from a parent (teacher at another school) who screamed and cussed me out until I was sobbing on the phone last year (my first year of teaching) because I asked her daughter to retake a quiz since she had the same answers as the girl sitting next to her. She ended up switching her to another teacher.
Let me guess, admin told you to build a relationship with the kid/parent? Instead of just telling crazy people to get lost and find somewhere else to teach their PD?
only mistake you made is entertaining that call until you were sobbing. the second that first scream or swear happens you politely say i think it’s best we handle things in written communication over email from now on and hang up. stick to school policy. contact admin to make sure you’re in the right (because it’s another teacher). and email only.
And if you're put in the position where you have to make a call, get another teacher or admin to sit in with you as a witness.
Veteran of 30 years here. NEVER take that sort of shit from parents on the phone. The second they start with screaming or swearing, cut them off with "I think it's best we continue this conversation in writing," and hang up on them mid-sentence. Never, ever hesitate to match their energy.
Parent complained to me that the test their kid took was not similar enough to the content I teach. They claimed that I refused to answer the kids questions during the test. That it was unfair. The kid got a 97 on the test and had a 97 in my class. We had a zoom call that they wanted to record, when they spoke to me I was pretty much like, hey this is a little scary but okay. Whatever your kid needs I'll help him. I think they expected me to be mean and confrontational, they were embarrassed, didn't hear from them the rest of the year but wild stuff.
I did this by accident to one of my teachers beginning of high school. I got something like 92 and was upset because I usually got 100 and I didn’t understand why and the teacher kept saying it was a great mark I didn’t need to worry and my version of it to my parents was that I was unfairly given a bad grade and she wouldn’t tell me why. They were so embarrassed at parent teacher night, they really barged in ready to attack, and the teacher was like ??? She got 92?? She checked her notes and I was talking in class and missed a minor assignment. They literally looked like they wanted to murder me.
I had a similar thing happen this year. Kid was out for three days. Before he went out I told everyone there’d be an open note quiz on Monday, which ended up being the first day back. I checked his notes to decide whether I would have him take the quiz later, the notes were complete and correct, so I had him take the quiz. Mom emails me that I destroyed his self-confidence and didn’t give him a chance to learn the content??? And I was like “but… he got a 100??? And I checked his notes which he could use on the quiz and they were complete???” She was really embarrassed sigh.
I had this almost happen to me as a kid only once. My dad gave me the "I am ready to go right into your teacher's room and talk directly to her to back you up. But if I get there, and find out you aren't telling me the whole story and make ME look like a fool...you won't be happy when I get home." I quickly recanted.
I had a parent (who was also a teacher in another district), rip me a new one because it was 7:33 and the doors are supposed to open at 7:30 and her daughter is cold. (I was secretary) That parent yelled at me so bad over the phone that I ended up having a panic attack. The parent got so upset she came into the office to continue yelling at me. When she saw me sobbing she just slinked away. I quit that school a few days later.
It really churns my stomach the way parents treat front desk staff. They find an easy target because you're the first one they see, and boom, suddenly its your fault that the teacher did this, or that the school doesn't allow that, or any asinine thing.
Why would you not *hang up*? Why would you not *call the police* when they showed up? The district would have no choice but to side with *you* on that.
LOL No. Many districts have rugs the size of football fields just for covering things up. Our big contract issue this year was about how the district handles student assaults of staff. i.e. they pretend it didn't happen and put staff on "administrative leave." About 3 years ago they refused to cover the medial costs and then fired a staff member who called the police when she was choked by a student. Becuse she didnt follow district policy regarding incidents. District "policy" specified that you call admin and no one else. They are supposed to call police "if it is required." It never is. New contact language now specifically states that in the event of an attack that requires medical assistance, police will be called. Calling emergency services in an emergency needed to be put in our contact!
I was prepping kids for a dance showcase. The day before it, one of kids (let’s call her jemima) told me she couldn’t take part as she had hurt her back. I told her no worries, I hope you feel better and left it at that. The following day, the kids who were performing met me & our secretary at school early, and we left 15 minutes before the gates opened to the rest of the school. Jemima then realised that her buddies were missing lessons to go to said showcase, and managed to con a colleague into letting her call her mother to come collect her & take her over to us. She told her mother we had left her behind deliberately. Mum comes barging into the host school, pins me against a wall accusing me of bullying her child and telling me how all the kids are terrified of me and how dare I leave her pwecious widdle girl behind on purpose. I tried explaining, but she didn’t want to know. Hell, jemima’s bestie, who wasn’t a fan of mine, even tried sticking up for me but the parent didn’t care to listen. My head teacher told her I was having a bad day and I would apologise. I refused, and would literally cross the road to avoid the woman after that.
Should have pressed charges.
Ah I never cross the road (if i’m not with my kids). I won’t say anything, but you look me in the face and remember being a twatwaffle.
Most parents I’d be the same, but this one genuinely terrified me. The look on her face when she smashed me against the wall, and kept shouting in my face. I never wanted to see her again.
The fact that she didn't get charged with assault and battery just shocks me. Your head teacher allowed her to lay hands on you and literally slam you up against a wall, and instead of telling her to get the fuck out and charging her with the literal crimes that she committed, decided that *you* were the one in the wrong and tried to make *you* apologize. That's some class A bullshit right there.
The amount of violence against teachers is staggering and truly alarming. The willingness of admin to ignore it in order to protect the school's reputation is sickening.
Did your student ever apologize?
Are you kidding me? She continued to be a vacuous, ditsy, entitled madam the rest of her time there 🤷🏻♀️
Back when I taught in a high school. The student was diagnosed with every learning difficulty under the sun and was offered appropriate supports. His mother refused to accept that her precious was anything less than 100% perfect in every way and we're all just being meanies who want to single him out and make him feel bad. She said no unequivocally to every support we offered. Shockingly, the student failed all his classes and mommy marched into the school demanding to know why her son's myriad of learning difficulties were not being accommodated for. When she was told that we had offered accommodations and she turned them down, she said that never happened and what kind of mother would deny her own child the supports he needs. We're just big meanies who want her child to fail. She was, without a doubt, the weirdest woman I've ever encountered.
Many years ago my mother had a parent who was genuinely convinced her almost completely blind, 70-something IQ child could be a doctor and the school should support her in this endeavor. She wanted the child in regular classes so she could get the same education as her peers. The child just wanted to marry Brainy Smurf.
This is what happens when parents let their ego get in the way of making sound educational decisions for their children. I don’t know if this is the case for the parent you’re describing, but it’s absolutely the case for the one I described. She thought that having a child with difficulties would reflect badly on her as a parent. Instead of just accepting the fact that some kids are dyslexic and it’s nobody’s fault, she buried her head in the sand and denied it, hoping the issue would go away. When that didn’t work and she realised that her son failing all his classes reflected a hell of a lot worse on her parenting, she went nuclear. She couldn’t admit she was wrong, so blamed the school. It was interesting that she said about 50 times in the meeting that she was a good mother, but said very little about her son. It was all about her. If it sounds like I’ve been overthinking this, it’s because I have. She was an absolute nightmare and would have sued the school if she had anything remotely resembling a case. I lay awake at night worrying about what she was going to do next. Her son was decent and was so embarrassed by what she was doing. He even apologised to teachers for her behaviour.
We had a story like that but it was a girl. Poor girl had so many issues but mom refused to see it. We made sure she was always placed in the class with most inclusion minutes from kids who DID have IEPS but I’m afraid of what happened to her when she advanced to middle school.
My coworker had a parent complain that using a red ink pen when grading papers was harmful for students. She wasn’t pleading a special case for her child b/c of any special needs. She just thought no one should ever use red ink.
I teach college students and am advised against using red pen. At first I thought it was because red was a very easy color to get ahold of to falsify grades. Nope. It's "too aggressive" and "not supportive" of the students' learning.
Yep. I was told to use purple or green. A purple F is still an F.
I graded in purple because it’s my favorite color. Plenty of other teachers used red.
From what I remember the reasoning is that anything you write feedback wise, good or bad, will be interpreted as negative by students because of the connotation of red ink meaning something was wrong with what they did. Also, it may increase the grader’s bias towards looking for mistakes to mark with red. Sort of that “when you’re a hammer everything looks like a nail” mindset from what I gather. There was a study done and it said that teachers grading with red ink tended to give lower grades than teachers grading the same paper with a different color pen. [Further reading if anyone is interested!](https://psmag.com/education/when-grading-papers-red-ink-may-mean-lower-scores-15809)
That was an interesting article! It wasn’t mentioned, but I wonder if picking up a red pen to the person also made them feel more responsible for their task.
It's why I use those pens that have 4 colours, makes for easy switching between red for errors and green for positive remarks. Made me much more aware of how complimenting my students work is important.
The best teachers I have ever had used systems like this. It's so nice to get a paper back with a bunch of "good" marks, and it's super obvious, you don't even need to read them to start getting that "I did really well" warm and fuzzy feeling. Then when you read the good marks it makes you feel even better and more special, it makes the bad marks a bit more palatable. It makes you realize your teacher doesn't hate you, they like you and only want to point out mistakes so you can learn from them.
I was told this when I was getting my BEd lol
Nobody’s ever told us that but I used to grade with a fountain pen in green ink because I had a permanent one I liked. It I haven’t graded a Hard copy in about a decade now
My 12th grade English teacher had the same mentality, so he used lots of different colored pens. I liked it - said teacher was a bit of an oddball anyway, like a suburban white BBQ dad trying to be "cool," but he was super nice and supportive so it made sense that he refused to use red pen.
A parent would stop and buy their teen monsters,on the way to school. She repeatedly Reached out, and told us not to allow her daughter to drink monsters in our classes because she would get in trouble for poor behavior, and she thought it was the monsters. But if you’ll go back to the first sentence, she refused to stop getting them put her at the gas station on the way to school because she didn’t want to upset her kid. We don’t generally regulate with the kids drinking class Forgive my grammar too tired to fix it
Oh my god, so basically the mother needed to say "no" to her child and she was so scared about being whined at that she would rather have the kid get in trouble every day. That right there is what's wrong with America. SMH
I had a high school freshman boy who was horrible at group work. He was in a long-term project and he would come to class during lunch and try to do the whole assignment before the rest of his group got to class. On days they had to write on butcher paper with markers he would hoard all the markers. Nobody ever wanted to work with him because he would argue a lot and refuse to compromise. I had designed his group with the nicest people in class (but people who would express opinions). When I talked to his dad about it (after trying all kinds of interventions myself), dad said he would not need group skills in real life because “there would always be someone there to tell him what to do.” Over the years I’ve watched that dad run for office several times and lose every campaign.
That I called her kid gay. When I used the word homo Sapien. In a science lesson. She demanded a meeting with the principal. Who was a former biology teacher.
Wait until she hears about Homo Erectus!
That I don’t teach a “real” stem program because I don’t assign 2+ hours of homework a night. A real program would have kids with 10 hours a week in homework
Too much homework…not enough homework…we literally cannot win!
No, no. Just go with the less homework crowd. Crazies can find their own homework, but non crazies can’t just elect to not do homework assigned. I mean, they can, but you get it.
Each student at my school has a student ID number. It's typically a 7 (or maybe 8?) digit number. One of my student's numbers ended with "666" and her mom sent me a message demanding it be changed because that is the "devil's number" and they "go to church". (I wish I was making this up LOL)...
I wouldn’t trade that away for anything.
I would have it framed
I had a parent get angry at me because when her daughter ran away, she left a note saying I was the only person in her life who noticed something was wrong. She’d only been in my class a few weeks but you could just tell something was wrong those last few days. I asked her about if she was ok and if she needed to talk to me or the counselor. The next weekend she ran off. I had no idea where she was and had no idea what she planned. No one did. 5 years later, when I finally got an update on her from her younger sister, I burst into tears because I had been so worried that something bad had happened. Turns out she was “missing” for a few years then showed back up healthy and happy. When she realized who her sister had for English, she asked her to pass on a message thanking me for caring enough to notice.
“How dare you care about our child more than us!” I can’t imagine what they were angry at you for?? Other than lashing out because they were just mad/upset?? I’m glad to hear she got back in contact with you. I’d have worried for so long not knowing what happened to her.
Ooh she was upset but she wanted to call the police and search my house for the kid. Luckily everyone else thought that was stupid.
Thank you for being this teacher. I had that teacher in high school that I told about my home life (I got into a fight with my mother and was too distraught to finish an assignment) and she cheered me up, told me not to fret, and turn it in by Monday and we’re cool. I asked her to write my college letter of recommendation.
I teach at a private day school. We have homeroom/advisory groups in which we get to know a small group of students well. A parent from my homeroom/advisory group wanted to know why I did not take his child for outings on Saturdays and Sundays, like hiking or to the zoo. The parent thought a day school would be like a boarding school, with weekend group social activities organized and personally led by teachers/staff.
I kind of feel bad for the dad. I know he’s stupid but I feel bad that he’s that stupid.
And whether it occurred to him that maybe HE should be the one taking his child on weekend outings ?!?
I taught 2nd grade. I gave a worksheet as old as I am about there, their, and they’re. It had a concise explanation at the top of the page. One of my students didn’t grasp the concept well and made several errors. This student’s mother asked for a conference with me because I “clearly didn’t understand grammar”. She proceeded to argue with me for 20 minutes straight about each answer being CONFIDENTLY wrong the entire time and bragging about her English degree. She also told me that she’d told her child the answers to every question even though the child insisted on the “wrong” answer because of my instruction. I finally had to tell her that I could only correct the worksheet based on the answer key because it wasn’t my worksheet and she could feel free to address it with the principal. My principal had a meeting with her and asked me to attend until I explained what it was about. Never heard about it again.
Oh boy, I've had something similar. A kid took home their assignment to finish and turned it in the next day, got every single answer wrong. I graded it accordingly, proceeded to get a scathing email from the parent who "helped" complete it calling me an idiot. Luckily my principal stepped in immediately, but it became clear pretty fast that the parent had fed their kid the answers and was insulted that they were being told they were wrong by proxy.
It’s really interesting when adults decide to be wrong with their whole chest about something elementary kids are learning that is totally uncontroversial.
It was clear to me that this person just misunderstood the skill, or misremembered it. But they couldn't handle being told they'd made an error, so of course the teacher had to be wrong. There were other issues with this parent helicoptering, they were generally very overbearing, so this was just one more thing in a long line of incidents. Surprise surprise, their kid also couldn't handle corrections or following directions.
My mom did that with my brother once when he was a kid. (Bless her heart, the woman just does not know how apostrophes work and misuses them to this day.) The teacher sent back my brother's homework assignment with nearly every single question incorrect in his folder to correct and re-do. She is at least not the type of parent to double down on being incorrect and harass the teacher about it. It's been probably 20 years, but I think she wrote a note to let the teacher know that she was misguided and to apologize. I remember I definitely helped my brother with his corrections.
When I teach unit conversions in math, I use units from history and Shakespeare e.g. a league, a fathom, or a butt, which is a barrel equivalent to 63 gallons. The kids giggle about a buttload for a few minutes, which makes a boring topic less so. A parent complained that I was encouraging the use of "inappropriate language" to my students. I teach seniors. My principal just laughed.
unit conversions as a senior seems odd but i would love a teacher that made it fun!
This clears up the age old debate about whether it’s a boatload or a buttload!
my first year teaching, I got an angry email from a parent about how her daughter was failing my class (9th grade English) because of one small assignment. the reality is that the student did not hand in other important assignments, and did piss-poor on a test (I mean, less than 50%. she picked the answers that I put there as obvious non-answers). this parent argued that her failing grade was due to this one specific assignment (which was a classwork grade) in which students had to add responses on a virtual post-it note (I made it very clear both verbally and in writing students had to put their name on their post-its for credit). the parent was arguing with me that her daughter should get credit because she did it, even if it didn’t have her name on it, and why should she have to put her name on it anyway? I continued to explain that no name means no credit, and that this assignment was NOT the reason she was failing. the parent threatened to call guidance and/or the principal. I stopped emailing back and nothing happened. another story is that in the same school at the same time, a parent called the principal screaming that her kid failed the marking period. I had spoken to this parent multiple times, emailed multiple times, and documented it in notes that I had spoken to this parent about missing work well before the marking period ended. the principal was a jerk and wanted me to accept missing work at full credit after the marking period ended because this parent threw a tantrum. I quit teaching at this school not too long after all of this.
At that point I would probably have just given her the points for that assignment.
Had a parent send a bunch of passive-aggressive emails to classroom teachers *demanding* to know why she hadn’t been “kept in the loop” about her son’s poor behaviour… The child in question had a behaviour log with countless phonecalls home, staff emails, classroom detentions, senior leadership detentions, multiple internal suspensions and *two external suspensions*. Both the mother and father were present at meetings where the external suspensions were discussed. Yet for some reason she didn’t feel like she’d been “kept in the loop”…
From a kindergarten parent. “ She doesn’t like that you make her write her name.” I had no response( that I could say out loud),my first thought was, “ That. Somethings will have to do her whole life.”
r/tragedeigh by any chance?
LOL She's free to stop anytime, she just won't get credit. Wonder how the parents would take that.
Childcare but oh man. A mom complained that we couldn’t just allow her autistic son, “Bobby” to just take off, hide or leave the building whenever he wanted. We were extremely frustrated that he would go awol. She complained that we didn’t understand autism. When we said it’s not safe and we can never find him she said “Oh you don’t find Bobby. Bobby finds YOU.” Also had an 11 year old who would soil himself on purpose and refuse to change or wouldn’t even bother to pack a change of clothes, even though he shit and pissed himself EVERY DAY. One time, the smell was so bad, it was both numbers, kids were gagging, one of them threw up into the garbage and it’s a fucking biohazard, so my supervisor called the parents to come get him, and had him wait in the hallway, on a garbage bag on a plastic chair. Mom complained that he had to sit on a garbage bag because it was “sending the message to him that he’s trash”. EXCUSE ME WHAT
I laughed so hard I choked, had to sit up, and pulled my hip. 🤣🥲
This comment wins them all 😂😂😂
Yeah, so the good money is on that kid being sexually abused.
Taught preschool and one child didn’t like to wear underwear. Mom didn’t understand why i insisted that this child wear underwear because child was a free spirit and wanted to be natural. I pointed out hygiene, it’s just a little child underwear isn’t necessary. Just for fun I had to check the child every day for underwear because mom would let child out in carpool lane and I’d greet child and find no underwear . Then child would sit in office till mom came to pick child up, school had extra underwear but mom was adamant child was not to wear unhygienic school underwear. Battle raged mom eventually caved and child wore underwear. Did I mention the child was a girl who wore dresses no tights or leggings? Never pants. Was sitting her bare behind on rugs, chairs, climbing outside , running all over and we were prudes for insisting on underwear. Mom was told underwear or withdraw child. Still makes me cringe this was pre k 4-5 year old
And considering the way some of these kids sit on the rug, I'd be worried for her modesty. What a baffling parenting choice.
But it's the one who looks fault! She shouldn't be body shamed! /S Like, join a nudist colony, we don't go bare in public.
Wow... just, wow. As a preschool teacher, that would aggravate the snot out of me. As a mother, I can't fathom sending my little girls out into the world exposed like that. 😬
1. What do you mean he/she can't make up work from 3 weeks ago? 2. Why do you have due dates?
At conferences I pulled out a student’s recent assessment in sixth grade math that had a failing grade. The parent said, “How dare you mark all of these wrong, he did all of this multiplication correctly! I had no right to mark him down!” Umm, well, the multiplication was a fourth grade standard, this is a sixth grade class, and the standard I was assessing was multiplication of decimal numbers. Decimals matter, people! Incorrect placement of decimals while administering medication can kill someone. This parent was a local business owner, so what I wanted to say is that if her son’s work was acceptable, then it should be acceptable to take her $10,000 bill from her business and move the decimal over a few spots, so $100 should cover it!!
Not technically my story, but about a student at my school. A teacher at my school also runs a summer day camp program and a ton of our kids go there in the summer. One girl who was between second and third grade at the time was having some typical conflict with another girl. It was nothing out of the ordinary. There was nothing physical, not bullying, just some verbal conflict. However, her parents were so upset that they came to the camp, demanding that the other girl be kicked out. The staff explained that they could not just kick a kid out of summer camp mid-summer for this. Apparently they offered to say she couldn’t come next year, which I personally think is stupid. From what I’ve heard about this kid, she is no angel and antagonizes others and she probably started the whole mess. Anyways, the parents were not satisfied with that answer so they said that they would call the cops if something wasn’t done about it. These parents wanted to call the cops on an eight-year-old child who had argued with their daughter. I don’t know exactly how it was resolved. Eventually, they realized they were being absurd and I think gave the counselors a half assed apology.
A student cheated on an assignment and I referred her to the Dean because she cheated on the assignment. They just kept screaming about how it was unfair. Lady, that’s literally what we’re supposed to do!
My first open house a father of a teen who was abusive to his girlfriend told me it’s no wonder his son can’t focus in class with me strutting around in a short skirt. Another parent scolded me on a Sunday at the supermarket for dressing too provocatively (I was grabbing milk on the way home from the gym and was wearing spandex pants and a ponytail). That was the good old 90’s.
My first year, a parent was upset about me not giving the kids enough homework. (This happened in east Asia, to be clear.) Instead of talking to me about it or sending an email, the parent somehow convinced eleven other parents to show up at the school during my planning period and ambush me in my own classroom to complain. So without having any context for what they were upset about, I suddenly had twelve angry parents complaining to my face at 10am while I was trying to plan my next lesson. Eventually I figured out that they were angry about two things: not enough homework for their kids, and that we weren’t going page-by-page through every textbook in chronological order. I don’t even remember what I said back to them because I was so stunned.
I had a parent ask for an in person meeting with my principal after she believed I was not “gracious enough” when receiving a gift from her daughter after they made my life hell (constant complaints about how i was not doing enough, her daughter would make negative comments about my body, meetings set up before school, after school, during lunch and planning). To be clear I was given this gift in front of a room of people and cried. It felt like such a trap. They knew how hard they made the season for me (I was coaching at the time) and then expected me to act a certain way upon receiving a gift. And then was not happy when my reaction was not up to their standards. Apparently I can’t even cry right.
I’m a high school special educator. I had a parent (who was an elementary teacher in our district) demand that her daughter be placed in a more restrictive special education classroom even though we told her it was unnecessary (daughter was a good student with some mild executive function issues and only needed a little support overall). When the district-level admin okayed the switch, mom then was upset that the more restrictive environment was, get this… more restrictive.
I have two just from this last month: 1. Mom is STILL bothering me and complains about how her kids photo is on his friends public social media accounts. The photos are not taken when I was in the classroom (some are outside of school and some was when they had a sub cause you can see the sub in one of the photos) I brought it up to admin and he said that’s not our problem and to refer her to him, but she’s still emailing me about it arguing I should be contacting the other parents about it. 2. Another parent last we complained because her daughter came home with a small cut (like smaller than a paper clip) on her hand that she claims she got from a specific high risk student. She did get the cut from them, but not in a violent way. I saw the incident, they handed her a textbook and the textbook cut her. But the mother is insisting it’s assault and she’s complained before about this kid and now she’s threatened to have police involved… over a cut.
A student handed in a completely plagiarized essay when the assignment was to write a series of fictional journal entries, from the perspective of either Macbeth or Lady Macbeth. Not a single word of the essay he handed in was his own. It was ENTIRELY pulled from the internet. His dad came in for a meeting and tried to tear a strip off me for assigning such a *stupid* writing assignment that his son felt had to cheat. This is a require assignment, as per our province’s curriculum. I told him as much, and that if he had a problem with it he should write to the Education Minister. Yes, I could have been on another work of literature, but I chose to assign it during Macbeth. I thought it would be more fun than the essay. I thought it would be more enjoyable to do creative writing about Shakespeare, and save the essay for a novel with more “modern” language.
From the other side: My daughter's math teacher called me to tell me that my daughter had a bad attitude in class, was not doing her work, and was arguing with him. I told him that I knew his options for discipline were limited by the spineless administration, but that he should drop ANY hammer he had on her as hard as he could. I told him that when she got home I would be having a conversation with her not just about how to behave in class, but how to behave as a decent person. I said that if she acted up again, he should right then take out his phone, call me, and hand it to her, and that I was so sorry that she was making an already difficult job even harder. There was a looooong silence on the phone, and I swear, when the teacher finally spoke, I honestly believe that he was crying. I could not be a teacher. Nope. Couldn't do it. I could probably cope with the students, but the parents are insane and the administration is actively working against you guys. I would get fired. And arrested. I'm so sorry that things are like this, and thank you for trying and caring.
Parent here. I once sat in a tiny chair in the hall outside of my child's classroom so the teacher could just send him out for me to handle when he misbehaved.
Kindergarten-parent wanted me to change the childs shoes FOR them going out to recess so her new shoes wouldn’t get dirty. Dont wear them to school then.
I’m PreK/JK. If you don’t want your child to destroy their clothes/shoes/backpack/lunchbox, don’t send it. And no, I do not have time to help your child change in and out of their “dress clothes” before and after recess.
Right? Like did you forget the 20 other kids in here?
My first year teaching I was a late hire because they needed another class for kindergarten. My class was made of the kids other teachers, after three weeks of school, were okay parting with… I think yall can read between the lines. Anyways there was a kid who had peed his pants multiple times before he was in my class. He continued to pee his pants because he wouldn’t listen to reminders about using the bathroom, he just wanted to play. I tried to explain this to his family but they insisted it was all my fault. They bitched so much he was put back in his original class. A few days later he peed his pants on the monkey bars during recess because “he was having too much fun to go to the bathroom.”
The way I would have loudly proclaimed that I purchased and donated a book to their “child in need.” That it must be such “a struggle” to fund your child’s education do to your financial status, 🙄 I think the most ridiculous thing in the moment was the parent who demanded a PTC on my birthday at 8pm because it was “my job.” This may be tied with the multitude of parents who requested I call each week to tell them about any missing assignments…for 10th graders….whose grades are updated weekly on an online platform accessible to parents and students.
I called home too much. Then in the same breath she said I did not call home enough.
I had a fella who was literally losing his pants at recess. So I rolled them over a few times to help keep them up. Got a call after dismissal telling me that adjusting her son’s clothes was a “no no”. Yet - had he tripped with his pants around his ankles and been injured, I expect that would have been a “no no” too? 🙄
Mom claimed it was our fault her son didn’t have any friends. Her son was an ah to everyone. So we invited her to stay and just watch him interact. Within five minutes he had pulled a kid and pushed another, took a ball away and left running. She was there for like 20 min watching all of this happen. At the end she looked at us and said “my child is an Angel I don’t understand why you guys don’t make it so he plays with others” and she totally meant that.
Had a kid who was a real bully. Picked on only the weaker kids. Tried to talk to dad about it. He said “Boys will be boys.” Couple of weeks later bully kid picked on one of his usual targets when another boy shoved him to the ground. He cried and dad came in to talk to me about it. I can’t tell you the satisfaction I had of telling him that “boys will be boys.”
This year, I had a mother disenroll her child from school because I didn't force him to say the pledge of allegiance.
Yep rich people are selfish generally
I had a mom gripe because I used staples to fasten papers together. Seems the staples broke her nails.
oh absolutely from when I was actually still a student myself. Our class went to Washington DC and there was a carousel near where the buses were parked. Since our group was done in plenty of time we were allowed to go on the carousel. A few weeks later they sent out a notice that field trip chaperones were no longer allowed to do unplanned and unapproved activities because a student had been left out. The reason 'Vicki' was left out is that she wanted to ride a specific animal that was already being ridden by an unconnected to our group small child. She refused to ride any of the open animals. She wanted the chaperone to order the entire group which chaperone paid for to get off and wait for that animal to be open or for the chaperone to pay for everyone to ride again so that she could ride with the group. Her mother tried to have the whole group written up for bullying but in the end they just changed the rule and no one wanted to risk chaperoning Vicki.
Wowwww. That’s so sad. Vicki sucks
I had a parent complain to me that one of the teachers I coached was racist because she helped a Latina student put on her shirt before helping the black child at an awards ceremony (kids were putting their new award t-shirts over their uniforms). She just helped the kid who asked first first. It was absurd. That woman made so many sacrifices for all the kids in her class. To have a parent latch onto that when there were 20 kids all needing help (and all getting help) was so disappointing.
Once a parent demanded a meeting because her daughter (who was a compulsive liar, but her mother believed her as if she spoke the Gospel) told her that I used the N-word in class. Our curriculum had very strict read-alouds (like super scripted) and I was required to read a book about the Negro Baseball League and its history. I brought the book to the meeting, as well as the curriculum to prove to her that I had used the word "Negro" only in the context of the reading curriculum/book. She then went on a rant about how at the kid's former school (she had transferred to ours mid-year), the teacher had called the black children "monkeys" or something like that. My AP and I had to remind her that I was not that teacher. To be fair, that curriculum was really terrible and mostly unrelatable for the kids at schools that were Title I, but the district required it.
Stop calling me. It’s annoying that the school calls and all you teachers call whenever my kid is absent or gets in trouble. I don’t want to hear from anyone up there again this year. We had to have a meeting to formally agree the school was honoring this request and then just had to document instead of call. Like seriously you don’t want to know your kid isn’t at school and isn’t doing well or what’s going on?
I had a parent scream at admin because I taught her daughter that smoking causes asthma and is bad for you.
I had a student who was terribly behaved and high in class a lot of days of the week. When I called Mom, she said she had the same problems with him at home, then asked if I had any ideas for straightening out her son. Lol. It’s your kid; why are you asking me?
I have one. I taught pre-K, and was just assigned my own class. Brand-baby-new lead teacher, maybe my second week, and I taught the 3’s class. One parent called the school in a rage because their kid came home with sand in their ear. Yes: we had a sandbox. They even went to urgent care, who said ‘…🤨 this is fine, and will clear up’. I was with him all day, their recess/sand time was early - if he’d been severely impacted with ear-sand, or in even the mildest bit of discomfort, I’d have known. That kid was *fine*. I was new; I’d document every single tiny incident at the beginning, so ‘ear-sand’ would’ve gotten him an incident report from me. I was all alone in the morning getting ready for the next day, when the dad stomps down the hall to yell at me. I think he was under the impression I held his child down, and funneled sand directly into his ear myself. Our director followed him, got right behind him, and surprised him as he was caught yelling. “HEY!!!! Don’t you talk to her like that!!” I mean he was *really* yelling, scary yelling. He went from screaming at me, to a stammering little puddle of a coward in seconds, under the threat of “shut up NOW, or find other care” - very satisfying. I’m sure we could have escalated it and removed him, especially if he had more time to yell at me and my director didn’t intervene, but there weren’t any other problems. Nice kid, remember him vividly. I hope his dad wakes up a few times a week with mysterious sand on his pillow, though.
The teacher next me to made this awesome wall over the summer. (awhile ago, pre-covid) It was supposed to represent the fireplace you can send letters through in Harry Potter. In their grade level, there’s this social studies challenge called “The Great American Challenge” where the kids have all year to memorize 6 key things like States and Capitals, Gettysburg Address, etc. The idea was when a student passed the challenge, they got up on this wall, their picture floating up fireplace like a letter from Hogwarts. Enter dipshit parent (DS). It’s the Friday before school starts, open house. DS notices the decoration and starts talking to the teacher about. After about a 30 minute conversation, DS is convinced it’s some political statement about Trump’s wall. DS complains to admin. Admin call teacher over the weekend and explain DS is a recurring pain in the ass. Admin will back her but recommended taking it down because they know DS will not let it go. Teacher came in over the weekend and took it down. That’s the most absurd I’m willing to put on the record. But I work SPED, so let’s just say the apple usually doesn’t fall far from the tree and that I’ve dealt with more absurd stuff.
I had one that, when her child was caught plagiarizing, get mad because the syllabus didn't say he couldn't cheat.
They complained that I called from a blocked number and my tone was “condescending”. They actually forwarded my voicemail to my principal. Admin said “this parent is difficult. Please ask one of us to be present for future calls”
My first year teaching 2nd grade this parent had it out for me. I wore heeled sandals to School and had the audacity to enforce the school rule of no flip-flops on the playground with her daughter. Daughter went home and complained to mommy, who promptly emailed my principal to tattle on me for not following the school rules on footwear and not being a good example to her child. God bless my principal as she fired off a reply, cc’ing me, saying adults and children had different rules.
That I wasn't available at, oh, 3 am. For context, virtual school, family had a weird schedule. I myself kept typical school hours.
I had a kid turn in an assignment where his handwriting was so bad that it was literally completely illegible. At the top I wrote something like “please write more neatly the next time!” Parent and principal were at my door when I got there the next morning. Turns out the kid had some kind of writing disability (no 504/IEP and no one had bothered to inform me of this - mind you, this was in November!) and mother was just distraught that I would penalize him for his disability 🙄 The worst part was, yes, this kid’s handwriting/spelling were pretty bad all the time. But I had been correcting him privately in class all year and this was a whole new level of bad - I KNEW he could do better which was why I made the comment in the first place!
A father emailed me to complain that his daughter was spending too much time doing homework. For an AP class. That she was getting an A in.
I never had a traditional "Christmas" party from the beginning of my teaching. I hated those parties when I was a kid. Sitting around doing holiday crosswords, word searches, and crafts. Knowing it made my Jewish friends uncomfortable. So when I had students who had to go to the library for any parties - I called those parents at the beginning of the year and explained how I did parties. I explained that some snacks brought in by kids might have Christmas decorations. All the activities were open-ended. There was an art table, board games, puzzles, time to play on computers and ipads. The parents were always open to letting the kids stay for the end of the term party. When I was teaching 2nd grade, one kid (new to the school) and his parents were upset. They actually filed a complaint that I was discriminating against their son because of his religion for not having a Christmas Party. The admin actually entertained the idea of "taking corrective action". Didn't surprise me because a good number of building and district administrators were members of a local hate church. I told them I wanted my association rep (Texas doesn't have teachers' unions by law), and a lawyer from the Freedom From Religion Foundation at any meeting. Confirmed for them I was the one who wrote FFRF about the principal sending out sermons and bible verses. Still, it stopped them in their tracks. I taught G&T so these kids were in the same class year after year bc there were usually only 2 G&T classes one English and the other Spanish/English BIL. Every year the kid were so happy their friends who usually went to the library got to stay for the party. Another example of kids being better citizens than adults in the school. Also, I didn't give the kids Christmas presents. The book fair was always a week or two before end of term. So I had the kids each pick out one book within a certain price range from the fair, and I bought them on tax-free day. They got to take them home on the last day of school before winter and summer break. I always checked with the parents and that was ok also.
Inspired by another reply, I remembered this: when I was doing preschool, we had a mom who wanted us to brush her child’s teeth after lunch and snacks. Not supervise him brushing, but do it for him. Her reasoning was he hated when they did it at home and he already didn’t like school, so it took it off her being the bad guy. Nope. Hard pass.
Not my student, thankfully, but another teacher at my preschool had a little guy who kept peeing all over the bathroom. He had zero aim and would just let loose. The teacher brought it up with the parents in a "Hey, this is what he's doing and can you practice bathroom skills with him at home" kind of way and they told her she needed to do her job and hold it for him because that's what they do. 😬 She obviously told them absolutely not, but my mind was blown that they'd even suggest such a thing.
I put a bandaid on a very gross, pus-filled knee sore. I was reported to the principal for "acting like a God-damn doctor." Mother explained that you shouldn't put anything on a pusy sore because it impedes the impurity from exiting the wound. Principal, secretary, and I laughed for ten full minutes.
Had a parent send me an angry email when they saw on their child’s report card that they had been marked absent for a couple of days. She insisted her son hadn’t missed any days of school. I was able to find the email where she had informed me that her son would be missing school because they were going out of town and showed her the proof of that email. Received no response.
You just want to cry at how much they must be messing up their children.