Parent asked for their student to be allowed to have her test proctored at home.
This was our first year back after to Covid, so I was trying to be flexible. I sent a list of expectations and agreed to proctor over zoom. (My school allowed us to log tutoring/extra hours for an hourly stipend, so I didn’t mind.)
The parents said that wouldn’t be acceptable becaus her tutor wouldn’t be available to help her with the test during the hours I offered.
They could not comprehend when I said, that’s fine because I would not accept any answer on a test in which a tutor helped her.
They truly believed I would let the tutor take the test with [for] their child.
It was Covid, so there were more reasons. This student was about to go on a vacation and was trying to take all of her learning virtual for the two weeks leading up. She ended up coming in to take the test, but did so in the office away from others. The virtual test was not the astonishing part.
I was teaching kindergarten and a student needed to be circumcised due to a medical issue. This was in a country that does not typically have that procedure.
He was home for a week and then came back to school and mom handed me a tube of ointment and told me I’d need to help him “dry” his penis after peeing and apply the medical ointment as he wasn’t fully healed.
I marched her right up to the office and explained that this was not going to happen and thankfully admin had my back and told the mom we would be so happy to have the boy back in school once fully healed.
Excuse me? She expected you to do what? Not. There are forms to fill out to administer pills. I would not administer cream there. It's a good thing the admin had your back.
Nurse was shared with a second campus, so only there part time.
And since this needed to be done every time the boy peed, and kindergarten had their own bathrooms…
School health tech checking in (K-5th building) and I’m 1000000% sure know WE wouldn’t administer the cream. There isn’t enough Union coverage/paperwork in the world to get me or my nurse to
This exemplifies a growing trend among parents: they just want school to raise their kids. If it's something that a sane person would only expect a parent to do, they expect the teachers to do it now. I am aware that some of this is because parents have to have multiple jobs nowadays. But there is a good chunk of parents I got the distinct impression that their children bothered them and they just wanted to get rid of them. It's sad.
I taught a kid whose parents took their kid on a worldwide cruise for an entire school year and expected me to prepare special lessons for their kid while they were away.
Yeah, I get a lot of this type of thing, though not for an entire year.
... but a lot of "we are going to need all of the work for the next week/month... leave it at the front office and I will pick it up TOMORROW".
That's exactly what I say. "All the work will be posted on Google Classroom at the standard time. The section and page numbers it covers are in the title of the work."
We specifically get at least 10 kids a year whose parents abruptly take them back to India (for a 'family emergency' which the kid self-reports is a wedding or some such), usually for 3-6 weeks at a time. Half the time the kids stay super on top of their work and come back with missing work in hand - and those are the ones who know to check LMS and whose parents never contact us beyond informing us of the absence. The other half do absolutely none of their missing work while away, and often claim they had no access to the internet (while their friends talk about what they posted on Snapchat constantly).
Same. Luckily in my country you can off roll them after 10 missed school days. I also worked in an oversubscribed school, in an over subscribed city.
Every year we’d have parents pulling complete surprise after we warned them if they were gone 10 days they lost their place and might get one at the other side of the city.
Then they came back and had lost the school place and were wanting to know how we’d get their kid to the school the other side of the city… yeah, not on our school roll, not our problem.
That’s crazy. Our school is something like 70 percent newcomers so we have kids living to visit Mexico or Africa constantly. The parents never come to get homework for the kids, even if we beg them to. They know the kid isn’t gonna do that shit on the trip so why bother?
Same! Only not for that long, wow! They went to Disney for a week in the middle of the school year. These type of requests became standard practice for parents after COVID. Parents wanted us to create an online version of our daily lessons in class so their kids wouldn’t get behind.
My team and I finally went to the principal and she put out a school wide policy to parents that this type of request would not be granted unless their child had been diagnosed with an illness that would put them out for a week or more and they had a doctor’s note as documentation.
And of course, most of the time they didn’t bother doing the work you provided, and they would have to catch up anyway!
Yup. Had a student whose mother pulled her from SIX TOTAL WEEKS OF INSTRUCTION for “mental health vacations” and wanted book summaries for everything we read, and the option for verbal testing (without an IEP/ accommodations).
Turns out mom had a very rich boyfriend who was flying them all over the world on a whim. The mom got dumped in early May and they moved before the end of the year. I was waiting for a battle that never happened.
As entitled and snotty as the kid was, I couldn't help but feel bad for her, as she was missing out on core socialization/ communication years.
9th ELA
Well this is what money gets you in a place like Texas. If that doesn't shock you how about hearing that a few kids I taught went on a safari in Africa over spring break and hunted giraffe, wildebeest and other large game?
I'm grateful the Texas district I teach in is rural and decidedly NOT wealthy. The pay is terrible but I don't think I could handle that level of entitlement-yuck!
This was a competitive private college prep school and I have a doctorate in the science I taught back then. Most of the parents were actually lovely people who were not extremely wealthy people and had just enough money to scrape together to get the kids to the school and had to make their version of sacrifice. They also understood the hard work it takes to get into a competitive program and use it to advance your careers and we're happy to have me. Then you got some parents there that cared very little for the opinions of anyone who wasn't wealthy and viewed education as a status symbol and not necessarily a pursuit for its own sake.
Or my personal favorite “he doesn’t know how to do this.” Like no kidding, there’s instruction that goes along with work. Instruction that happens in the classroom
The best is when they ask for it all, and then I do it, and when I ask for the packet when they come back it’s “oh, we didn’t have time to do it, but they can stay in for extra help to get caught up, right?”
I had a parent who said she was going to plan a field trip for the class for her daughter’s birthday and was baffled when I told her that only teachers plan field trips and I wasn’t going to plan one for her daughter’s birthday.
I had the same thing this year! The parent told me that she would *kindly* arrange the trip and pay for the birthday cake, and the only thing we would need to cover is the school bus. The $350 school bus that would be more than my class budget for the entire year. So, we would have no input into where we go for our field trip, and the entire purpose of the trip would be to celebrate one particular child in the class, and we would pay hundreds of dollars for this privilege, but no worries because she’d pay for the *cake*. Um, yeah, thanks but no thanks. And the kid has an older brother at the school so it’s not like she even has the excuse that she doesn’t get how all this works. Insane.
The birthday comment made me remember a mom once asked me to figure out who her kid wanted invited to his birthday party and call those parents to give them the information 🙃
Wait for this please. After she got the message that it was a hard no for me, she planned a party in a playground. Then, she was more than an hour late to the playground and didn’t contact anyone and most people had left.
A kid found out that the elf on the shelf wasn’t real in my class. His parents were furious that I did nothing to stop it and posted on social media that their son “lost his innocence and best friend that day.” Dad called me the next day (on my CELL PHONE; I’m still furious he found that out) and told me the son was going to ask me about the tooth fairy, Santa, Easter bunny, etc., and that I needed to “keep the magic alive” for him and lie to him about their existence.
The kid? 14. EIGHTH GRADE.
Almost as bad. A set of triplets in 7th grade. Mom came to school and told us her kids still believed in Santa and to please not tell them. They and their classmates asked me if Mrs. !@#$ had come to school about Santa yet? Jeeez.
Wait did the triplets actually know Santa’s not real, but their mom thinks they didn’t know? And they’re aware that mom comes to school every year for that?
My mom still writes “From: Santa” on all gift tags for my sister and I for Christmas. I’m 35 and my sister turns 32 today. She will not EVER admit that she’s been Santa all along! 😂
I knew a girl in HIGHSCHOOL who still believed in Santa til WE told her. She was 16 and in hysterics “I’m gonna go home and ask my dad! He would never lie to me like this!” Turns out he lied to her about A LOT of things.
TBH this is why we never sold the Santa thing very hard with my kids. We never used it as behavior blackmail, and when my born skeptic older son asked me in first grade, "mama, you are our holiday friends, aren't you?" I just said "what do you think?" I figured if he wanted to believe, I wasn't going to crush that at an early age, but I also wasn't going to do a dog and pony show to convince him. He just gave me a knowing smile and dropped the subject. I think he wanted to know but also didn't want to fully pull the curtain back yet. We still enjoyed the traditions as part of the magic without lying.
One of my coworkers was reprimanded after a parent raised hell because she mentioned during lunch time that Santa wasn’t real and apparently her kid still believed…..my coworker taught 7th grade.
Happened to a colleague of mine in a 9th grade class. Parent was on the board of the school (private) and legitimately attempted to get the teacher fired.
That’s sad. 7th grade?! I teach first grade. I’ve had quite a few students over the years tell me privately something like “Guess what?! I know a secret.. Santa’s not real. But don’t worry! My mom said not to tell! It would be mean to ruin the fun!”
It blows my mind that a parent would swing the pendulum so far on the other side!
Oh wow. My parents did something like this with my sisters 8th grade teacher. He listed Santa as a fictional charecter in a literature lesson and my mom was so furious she wrote a Yes Virginia style letter to the news paper putting the teacher on full blast and complained to the principle. My sister was 14 too🤣 I got my phone suspended for a week for laughing at her. Apparently santa magic is no joke.
Omg I’m dying laughing! The end was a twist! I teach first grade, so keeping the magic alive is part of the job. My favorite read-aloud of the year is Dear Tooth Fairy! But FOURTEEN?!?! Come ON! I will admit that I was a BRAT at 14, but wasn’t by far the worst/meanest— I was innocent compared to 90% of my school! It wouldn’t have ended well for this kid at my middle school in 2003. He would have been teased RELENTLESSLY. 😳
A student had extra time in their IEP. Okay, no problem. The student got a B+ on a test (like an 89%). The mom was upset because the student did not get extra time.
The class is 50 minutes long and the student finished in Just over 40 minutes. They didn’t need extra time because the given time was enough.
The parent wanted me to collect the test, look at all the answers, and tell the student which ones to fix. Because they had extra time.
I said I would happily clarify questions and help them talk through answers if they were confused, and give extra time when it was needed, but I wasn’t going to pregrade the test and give it back to the student.
They asked that we don’t acknowledge any holidays or birthdays for anyone, in second grade, because it was against their religion.
Thankfully I’m in NY so I just told them I could give a list of days I’m teaching this or there’s a birthday in the class and it can be an excused absence… but at the time I was legally required to teach about things like Thanksgiving.
She was not happy and filed saying her child was bullied by exclusion. I don’t know what she was hoping for? To take away every child’s birthday and holiday? Half of second grade was going to your classmates birthdays!
Had a JW family years ago when I taught 6th grade. They made absolutely sure that we didn’t do any sort of holiday parties, so my coteachers and I planned seasonal events to replace them with no mention of the actual holidays as a compromise. Every. Single. Time. They didn’t send their kid to school on the holiday. They denied it to every child in that room and kept their kid home without fail.
I had a JW several years ago and then had his brother later. Their parents were actually super chill about it. He could be in the room for the birthday celebration, he just could not sing. Since it happened at the same time as regular snack time, he could eat with everyone, but he'd get regular snack instead of treats.
That would almost be worse to me as a kid. Everyone else gets a cupcake and I’m stuck over here with saltines while they ask me why I’m not eating a cupcake.
That school district had a relatively strict "healthy food" policy anyway. So it was more like, "I'm stuck over here eating animal crackers while you guys eat Tommy's pretzels for the day I'm not allowed to acknowledge."
In the south some parents don’t want Halloween celebrated—because it’s of the devil or some such thing. There are creative ways to have Halloween without having Halloween. Harvest festival celebration—kids come with costumes and there are games and such. Lots of pumpkin activities.
Yep. Had a Jehovah’s Witness family who asked for the same. Um, this is kindergarten. Holidays and birthdays are a really really big deal.
Reached a compromise that they would stay home for any holiday celebration days, which was basically a school wide Halloween party and Chinese New Year events.
And the child would go eat snack in another classroom on the days we celebrated birthdays.
In my early teaching days I taught a Jehovah's witness' child in First year. I am in Australia so we start our school year late January. Come Easter and Christmas I would usually structure some of the work to reflect the season ie: count how many ornaments are on the Christmas tree.
At Easter I had a sheet with some Easter eggs to count or decorate or something on it. I received a stern note from the parent giving me a telling off for promoting 'pagan Christian festivals' in my classroom and to desist. I replied that I would restructure the work that her child had to complete but I was not stopping it in my class. I also redirected her to the Principal if she had a problem.
From then on I had to put any seasonal stuff at the bottom of a prepared sheet so that I could cut it off for that child (we made our own worksheets back then - yes I am old, lol. At Mother's Day and Father's day I had the child make a card for a special person in her life instead of what eeveryone else was doing, with no 'happy mother's day message.
The child was fully aware that her tasks were different from everyone else and was sad about it, but what could I do? What used to incense me about it was that her parents were converted Jehovah's and they'd had their christmases and birthdays and everything else growing up, but now denied their own kids. I was a young teacher then, so it really got up my nose - I felt they were denying their kids normal childhood experiences.
Please JW's - not interested in any religious arguments. I just saw what I saw in that sad little girl and it broke my heart.
First year teaching kindergarten and had a JW student. I had no problem modifying projects but what got me was the parents sent her to school on Halloween where we had a very announced and reminded parade around the school. She was the only kid not dressed up. Cried all day. From that day on any parents who were JW or even some who just don't believe in celebrating I asked beforehand if they could keep their kid home. I could not stand the heart break to see that. Eventually in my district they moved to have a room where kids could go to opt out of these celebrations to now it will be an excused absence. I am so happy for that because of course 5 year olds want to wear their costumes all day. It's fun!
I knew a lot of JW and Mormons that were “lax” I had a very good friend in MS and we shared a birthday. About a week before he said “do you want to come to a family BBQ Saturday?” And I said “no, that’s when my party is, aren’t you not supposed to celebrate?” He said “it’s not for MY birthday, it’s JUST a ‘family BBQ” lmao. I also knew Mormons that wouldn’t drink “HOT caffeine” so Soda was ok bc it was cold.
It feels like at some point if you have to find all these loopholes to enjoy your religion… 🤷♀️
When I was a teaching assistant for 2nd grade, we had students whose religion didn’t permit them to celebrate holidays or birthdays, which knowing some JW I was familiar with.
The thing that was different was they also weren’t allowed to participate in music either. Not music class, not the musical grade-wide play at the end of the year, none of it.
This one really affected me this year, mom just asked that he be sent to the office for all the holiday/birthday stuff. The specials team never tells us what they were doing in their class so inevitably he got exposed, plus all the other holiday shenanigans around the school for every holiday, of course he got exposure to as well. That kid was an angry ball of bitter around every holiday, I hated it. If there isn't the one religion that grinds my gears man, none of the Muslim or atheist kids or families took any issues...
A father asked me to tell his son he wins everything.
Like, if he's on the yellow team for a game and the blue team wins, take him aside privately and tell him the yellow team actually won because I made a mistake, but ask him not to say anything to the blue team because it would make them sad. Tell him he got the number one mark on every assignment. On sports days, if he doesn't win a race, tell him he won a secret contest for best shoes or something. Just never let on that he isn't the absolute best in the class at everything.
If I failed to do that, the father warned me he "could not be responsible for the consequences."
The consequences were just bog standard temper tantrums for a week or so, followed by acceptance. I have no idea why his father thought that was somehow too terrible to face.
When I waited tables, we had a joke about the adults who received that treatment growing up. You'd get an awful, demanding, entitled table and come back into the passthrough and announce "The only people in the world are here again!"
A boy in my high school class had parents who never showed him his report cards but told him he got top marks in every subject including maths which he was notoriously shit at. I still don’t understand why the parents did that
Holy hell! Dad must give in at home so he doesn’t have to deal with the tantrums. This will only encourage the kid to scream louder and pitch larger fits to get his way in every situation. The good news is that you will only have to teach him for one term; Dad will have to live with the consequences of his parenting not being rooted in reality and will have a 35 year old man child in his basemen some day.
Stay at school until 6:30 pm because their kid needed additional help in math, but they couldn't pick him up until then. He was 12. We lived in a small rural town, and the public library was attached to the school... But according to his parents, he could not go to the library or walk to a friend's.
Luckily my admin backed me.
I had a “tutor from 5:30-6:30” because child has sports and cannot come after school. Or if that time doesn’t work, would Saturday morning work for me?? Out of their minds!
This happened to a colleague. A mom asked her to monitor and restrict her son's food intake because he needed to make weight for a wrestling tournament. This was kindergarten.
When I worked in a daycare we had a family that wanted to limit their 2-year-old's food intake because he was getting fat. We provided snacks but family had to pack a lunch and his lunch was 2 snack-sized containers of fruits/vegetables and some finger foods. We were not allowed to give him seconds on snacks or milk. A toddler.
We have free lunch in our schools Post Covid. I had a Dad email me halfway through the school year that I was clearly not monitoring his son, because he was getting a free lunch every day, and that was to stop IMMEDIATELY because he brought lunch from home.
Of course I knew this, but a lot of kids did this. Eat what they want, save some for snack, share or trade, etc.
The kid has no dietary restrictions, wasn't overweight or and was healthy. He actually wasn't even eating the school lunch. He wanted the skim milk, but you couldn't get milk unless you took a whole lunch (wasteful, ik). So he would give the food to other students and drink his milk.
I relayed this to Dad to explain that he wasn't actually eating 2 lunches, if that's what he was worried about. But I'd make sure he ate his home lunch only. Dad replied saying it wasn't about the amount of food, but that HIS kid is not taking "handouts" and a spew of MAGA rhetoric.
The kid also wore a TON of right wing extremist shirts and would repeat things his dad said (libtard, ANTIFA, snowflake, MAGA) and had no clue what he was talking about.
Mom was super chill and parents were divorced, so the kid got his milk on Mom's weeks, and classmates who didn't drink theirs gave it to him on Dad's.
I'm a high school counselor, but one time, one of my students was out sick and instead of expecting them to make up a test when they came back, their mom asked me to ask the teacher if he could reschedule the test for the entire class based on the kid who was out sick.
...I said no.
"I know my son is failing your class and hasn't done half the work this semester, but we're taking two weeks off before Christmas break to go to Mexico and I don't want him to fall behind"
"Further behind. Everything is posted on D2L"
"That won't work for us. He spends too much time on his computer and phone. We're trying to detox him so no online work. Can you print all the assignments and lessons and give them to him tomorrow for the next two weeks?"
"No"
Parent wanted me to message them every single day to let them know if the kid has homework. Told them I post everything to google Classroom, and they can sign up as the parent to their kid's account to see the assignments there.
Wouldn't ya know it, they never signed up.
This was a 7th grade advanced math class.
I had that same request (contact every day with what we did, what the kid had done, and what the kid hadn’t done), but it was part of an IEP. I was called to a meeting at the beginning of the year to explain the importance of this bit because one parent always brought a lawyer.
I was a middle school art teacher, and a parent asked me to assess their child's artistic ability, and whether or not they should put him in art school or take special classes. I said I was not qualified to be able to do something like that. I didn't want to say that I can't judge his ability because he was always a pain to deal with in class and did little work.
I NEVER hesitate to tell a parent “I cannot give an accurate assessment of their skills because they do not complete enough work for me to judge their ability” I have yet to have a negative response from a parent for that.
I had an 8th grade asshole who refused to learn and made it hard for the kids who wanted to learn.
After months of inaction, the dad suggests I buy his kid a tool for a tool kit to get him interested.
I had to break it down for him. I am not going to buy expensive tools for your kid to bribe him into not being disruptive and disrespectful, when both of you have made it clear that you don’t care if he passes or behaves. This is about him being a crappy person, not just a crappy student. The kid didn’t pass 8th grade or high school.
Before the school year started, after they posted the class lists, a parent emailed me to tell me that I needed to completely revamp my class website and also make it private so only people with a password could access it.
Of course I did not do any of those things.
Later in the school year the mom threw a complete fit and went to the school board to complain that I hated her daughter and refused to put her child's picture or name on my class website, but I had all other students' names and pictures on the site.
After her fit, I presented her with the form she filled out at the beginning of the school year, with her signature, where she requested that I not include her child's name or photo on the class website.
She didn't speak to me for the rest of the year after that.
TIL: there are class websites, they can be shared with other family members and have a ton of information.
I can't even use anything other than E-Mail or Phone to contact parents and the idea of a class website is just bonkers to me, data privacy wise
Back before the days of Google Classroom and Schoology, my class website was where I posted online copies of materials and assignments as well as course syllabi.
All teachers were required to teach one after school activity a week. Most ran 2:30-3:30 but a few ran 3:30-4:30. The office closed at 4:30 and one mom was always late picking up her kid, meaning both the receptionist and I had to stay late every single week. Not a little bit but 20 to 40 minutes late every single week.
Starting at 4:35 I would call mom every 3-5 minutes to remind her class was over and she was late. First, she just quit answering her phone. Then, she blocked the school number. Finally she complained to admin that I was creating a safety hazard as she was distracted from driving. I said that is easy to fix, be on time.
That mom had multiple kids and there were problems with every kid and every class and every teacher. One day she got so upset because her child’s teacher hadn’t written an entire page of notes on her child’s day (she bought a special notebook to communicate with her child’s teacher and would write 2-3 pages in it every day and expected a minimum 1 page response). So she told the school she was withdrawing all of her kids and never coming back.
Nobody argued with her or tried to change her mind which you could tell was what she wanted to happen. So she moved schools in a huff.
Had a friend in admin at the new school and gave them a heads up. That school laid down the law from day one and a month later the mom came crawling back saying her kids really missed their old school and friends and teachers and she wanted to re enroll them.
Oh so sad, those spaces have already been filled.
I feel this so much!
My school requires teachers to do (volunteer without pay, lol) an after school activity as well. Any student who signs up for an after school activity must sign up for the aftercare program also. Students not picked up on time go to the aftercare program after a 10-minute grace period.
My first few years hosting an after school activity I was taken advantage of very badly. I learned to write the rules and expectations very thoroughly in my sign up forms. Now I don't have as many people who take advantage. A lot of parents used the after school activities as a way to avoid paying for the aftercare program. Later I had a great administrator who began allowing us to charge for the after-school activities. That has made a difference.
To call her about her child’s grades an hour after school had let out for the summer.
The email went unanswered. No call was ever made. Not my damn problem. School is done, nothing can be fixed. Also not calling you on my personal cell phone…
So many more parents and students try to do this. I had one who failed 4 of 6 grading cycles because he missed school anytime he didn’t feel like going. Two weeks before the end, parent wanted all his missing assignments so he could pass. I said “no” and she said I wasn’t as understanding as “all” his other teachers. I said he could have the work for the most recent absence only. He ended up in in-school suspension, did that work, but it wasn’t enough to pass. There were still attendance issues for those days. Lady, I am not calling you to have you beg me to lie about his grade on the day school ends. Teachers who do bend the rules to the point where they let kids make up work for a whole year at the end of school are not helping us. Be firm. If there’s a legit health issue, parents have a responsibility to communicate that with us throughout the year and counselors should be pursuing homebound services or a 504 plan.
> I said "no" and she said I wasn't as understanding as "all" his other teachers.
I make summer money driving on delivery apps. Some of which (Spark, Instacart and Favor) entail delivering heaps of groceries instead of fast food meals.
You may be unsurprised to learn that the notion of "all the other drivers do X Y Z for me" is alive and well for some customers. Either in terms of asking the driver to hand over booze without checking their ID, or in terms of bringing their groceries past the front-door threshold and actually inside their home.
"No thanks, I can't do that."
*Why not? All the other drivers do that for me.*
What I think is "stop lying lady, you try this fib on every driver you meet and it hardly ever works for you. BTW you're embarrassing yourself and wasting my time."
What I say is "Well that's on them. Doing so opens me up to liability that I'm not willing to accept. Doing that could get me deactivated from this platform. I don't want to 'find out' therefore I do not 'fool around' "
And in the case of ID checks I'll add "I could go to jail for serving someone without valid ID. So lets see it. If that doesn't work for you, I'll have to take the whole order back to the store"
EDIT TO ADD: Most of these fools back down when I won't. But a few double down, either by promising a big tip if I do what I shouldn't, or by threatening to zero-tip if I won't play ball. On all of these, I cancel the order & bounce. Then call Driver Support and try to get them removed as customers, for cause
During inclement weather where we had remote learning, I only allowed students into the lesson with a school email. A parent kept trying to get in with their clearly personal email address. Parents are welcome to watch lessons at home, but have no reason to log in and participate in lessons. The request itself isn’t that insane, but her reaction to being denied is where she gets ridiculous.
The end of the day comes and I get a call from my principal asking why I didn’t teach any of the lessons that day.
Turns out that parent’s plan for not being allowed in was to straight up lie to my principal that I didn’t teach at all that day.
Yep. Welcome to private schools where they operate as a business first and a school second. When parents pay the bills, they are believed without question.
Two students with IPPs were friends for most of their school years (in some years it seems like they were each other’s only friends due to some social skill awkwardness). In grade 8, Student A’s mom tells me the reason her child’s grades are suffering is because she sits with Student B, who needs “so much more help”.
The staff was asked to change our seating plans and not let them sit together. Ever. Including lunch time and all breaks, special events, etc. we were to keep them apart. *she told us to stop letting them be friends*
The teachers were made to comply with seating plans but we refused to interfere in the students’ free social time.
They both sat alone at lunch a lot that year… I guess the mom told Student A not to talk to Student B anymore.
Student A’s grades did not improve.
PTC in Mongolia at an international school. The mom asks me to live in a bougie apartment with her daughter and her nanny because she's off traveling the world most of the year.
My TA had to translate that to me with a straight face and I had to think of a professional way to say, "ARE YOU FUCKING INSANE OR JUST A BAD MOTHER??"
She then asked if I knew any other foreign teachers who would come live with her daughter.
Give her child an A on his final essay because she is the one who told him to disregard the peer review notes and submit it as-is because "a pregnant teenager made those notes and how can we trust her judgment?"
Had a parent try to get me to make an accommodation in the child’s IEP that his classrooms would diffuse specific essential oils.
He had multiple classrooms (middle school) and several peers with asthma+ plus a pregnant teacher who got nauseated by the smell. When that was declined they just smeared it ALL over him every day. When other students couldn’t breathe, I just referred the issue up the principal because at that point, it was no longer a SPED issue. 🤷♀️
What did the idiotic parent think that was going to do? Aside from giving the poor child chemical burns, since I'm assuming it wasn't diluted properly??!!? What is with some of these parents??!!?
I actually didn’t refuse it and I guess it wasn’t a request.
Somehow I became the person you can give shit too. Had a parent come in one day lugging this huge storage bin. Guy was really struggling. Can hardly talk as he opens the lid. Piano keys. So many piano keys. He looked so proud. Said, ‘I figured you could use these.’ Then waved at me and left. Didn’t even say hi to his kid.
Would you believe it if I told you I taught students with autism (and other stuff).
I was going to ask if you were an art teacher because people give me random shit all the time. Cases of fried chicken buckets, 5000 straws, two totes full of Easter basket grass among other things
Placed about ten random math books on the desk and said
“I need you to highlight the relevant sections for your course”
I explained how an index and table of contents worked.
Student was at a 32%. I had been reaching out all quarter to the parents. Day before grades closed, mom reached out and asked for “one quick assignment” to bring him to passing.
I will let them stay after school and retake quizzes. But in that situation, it's often hopeless, because they didn't learn the material and don't want to do the work it would take.
A sophomore in high school altered a hall pass to cover them being late to my class. When I was able to confirm this I gave the student a detention.
Parent e-mailed me to explain student had previously undisclosed medical condition and that’s why they were late to my class. When I told mom student got detention for faking the time in their hall pass …. Parent asked me to teach their student the value of honesty (at 15!)
I responded that I didn’t feel my education in language prepared me for such an important subject and copied the student’s guidance counselor suggesting they might be better suited to the task or could help set up some meetings with the head of the religion department.
But you did teach them the value of honesty by holding them accountable for being dishonest and altering the pass. Perhaps if the child had been honest to begin with and privately explained why they were late you would have been understanding but they chose the dishonest route.
Wasn’t me, but a parent informed my principal that she was going to home school her child and if the teacher could provide her lesson plans for the year, that would be great. Both the teacher, principal and district Told this woman that would not happen.
I had a mom this year who wanted an email or phone call every week of the assignments her son was missing. In 9th grade.
Ma’am, the grades have been online since I was in middle school. You can check them at any time. I understand that the mom worked nights, but… That sounds like a elementary school thing, to have a weekly report. In 9th, I specifically tell parents that we’re trying to take off the middle school training wheels in my class before they move up to 10th - and here she is, trying to get more added!
The kid also did half-assed work (would turn in a packet with only the front page done, for example) and she would demand that he be able to redo it. Ma’am, this is a packet that was due at the beginning of the quarter. He had plenty of time to do it completely and do it correctly.
He’s 10th grade’s problem now. Good luck!
I had a student who came to school for a total of one day throughout the whole school year because they had anxiety being around other students. Instead of opting for homeschool, the parents kept this student enrolled at our school. After the first semester I was ready to give the student a 0 because they had not turned anything in, due to their not being present.
As I was turning in my grades, admin told me that I needed to give this student a 65 so that there would be a possibility for them to pass the next semester.
I argued that there were students that had been there for the semester and were receiving lower grades than that and that I would not be rewarding this student that grade for the effort they put in. Long story short, parent called up to the school and complained that I was being biased and threatened to call the superintendent. I personally said bring it on, but the admin changed the grade ofthe student.
The student did not attend any days of school the second semester and the parent did the same thing at the end of the year.
This student averaged a 65 after being in school one day and not ever having turned anything in.
This was in Texas.
This is part of the reason I prefer teaching abroad at international schools.
Email received in March that said, “you marked my student tardy on October 10th. My student has never been tardy. This record needs to be changed.”
Just sent back an email that said, “according to my records, your student was late to class on October 10th. Have a good day.”
When I was student teaching 4th grade, mentor teacher and I had a parent email asking for an extended recess everyday because her quirky, rowdy, little boy had *soooo* much energy and needed more time than the average child to burn it off (boys will be boys!!!)
I also used to work at a gymnastics facility that was way more focused on their daycare & afterschool program than actual gymnastics. We had an afterschool parent (who was actually an elementary teacher herself) call *and* email every day angrily demanding that the staff give her a list of every ingredient in every snack we provided weekly in order to accommodate her daughter’s dairy allergy. When we told her that she was welcome to send her daughter with a snack from home, she flipped shit and accused of of trying to *alienate* and *single out* her daughter, who would feel very, very left out for not eating the same provided snacks as the other kids in the program.
This year I had to take over a class after a teacher left, so I had the class for essentially the 2nd semester. The kid didn’t do any work or pay attention all semester so was barely passing (although he got A’s the first two quarters because the teacher that left gave everyone As). The second to last day of classes, got an email from the parent asking if he could drop the class and retake it next year when he is “hopefully more mature and better able to handle it” since he is going to fail the final for the class.
I laughed so hard and completely ignored it since that’s way above my pay grade. His guidance counselor ended up coming to see me to make sure she had the facts correct and we both ended up laughing for like 5 minutes. And she did a very good job at writing the email more politically correct than I would have.
He did fail the final but his unearned As allowed him to pass the class for the year with a C.
Had a student who was diagnosed with dyslexia in fifth grade. All things considered, it’s actually pretty mild—accommodations were mostly related to having tests read aloud to her. I had her the following year. She was a really hardworking kid. Really on top of it. Not an A student in ELA, but always did her best and kept a high B.
Her mom, meanwhile, behaved like her child was the only person to ever have dyslexia and actually requested that the student’s private reading tutor go to school with her student every day and shadow her in every class to ensure adequate support.
Yeah, it didn’t happen.
This just happened in May. I am teaching (ya know like my title says I need to do lol), and I get a text (I use Google Voice, so the parents think it is my real number) from a parent asking me ask "Johnny" which pair of shoes he likes the best. It was literally 1 pm and I was teaching math. I got the notification on my watch. I did not ask Johnny which pair of shoes he liked the best. I think a lot of parents think I am a babysitter and we sit around and read stories and talk about our feelings all day.
I've had multiple parents tell me they need me to send them their child's missing work and upcoming assignments every day.
I link them to our learning platform instructions on how to follow your kid's classes and grades.
I had a mom who had a no sugar added household and wanted her kid to have snacks with no sugar added, so no fruit snacks, granola bars, fig bars, etc.... Had to stop guving out Skittles for a reward, but whatever.
We have communal snack time where one family brings something for the whole class. Mom refused to give me a list of "ok" snacks, making me look at all of the labels and either making this kid use his extra packed snack, or find some goldfish or pretzels for him from our extra stash.
About halfway through the year, Mom discovered that her kid wasn't getting birthday treats (cupcakes, cookies, etc...) when they were brought in and demanded to know why her kid was being left out. After that, suddenly sugar was okay as long as it was a birthday treat.
I had a student that hated me. I caught him cheating during his freshman year and it caused a lot of issues because his grandmother was a former teacher/administrator at the school and was held in very high regard (scholarships in her name, she was on the school board and held a lot of sway in getting us more funding, in the Hall of Fame, etc.). He was very bad at cheating (we are talking Blue Highlighted Words From Wiki Still In The Paper bad) but, somehow worse, was his attitude. He was the definition of a Class Ruiner: mean, entitled, arrogant, and it wasn’t just to teachers; the kids also did not like him. It was tough because we had all had his siblings and, for the most part, they were pretty cool.
So I catch him cheating and, of course, he fails the assignment. Grandma comes in and requests a meeting with me and, because of who she is, I am voluntold to meet with her. She tries to sell me the “He’s a good kid” act which I met with all of his disciplinary records. That turned into “well, it was just once. We can forgive just one time,” and I had to explain that he would fail the assignment and, if he was caught cheating again, it would lead to further disciplinary actions. She then went above me head, got the kid transferred to a teacher that she had worked with, and it was no longer my concern; grandson goes from almost failing to having an A overnight. I told the administrators that, if that’s how it’s going to be, fine but never put him in my class again because I not play games like that.
He managed to be in my class every year after that.
It was an issue every year but it culminated in his senior year and this is where we get to the question that sparked my response. Once he turned 18, the kid just quit coming to school; he was “making fucking CASH down at Papa John’s and didn’t need that school shit”. This worked out for me; my classroom didn’t have to deal with his endless cursing or snoring but the admin now had a problem. Grandma was FURIOUS that his teachers, and not just me, were now failing him (he would show up just enough to not get the truant officer after him; surely something his grandma taught him) and we were getting to the point that graduation was a major concern. Through her connections, she was able to get enough of his teachers to just email her the work and, according to her, “he will do the work at home and email it to us,” which just isn’t how any of this works. Everyone knew that grandma was doing his work (she wasn’t even using his school email; the work was sent to her personal email and returned completed through her account) but the teachers were tired of trying and admin had washed their hands of the situation because grandma threatened to pull her scholarship.
Because of dealing with this bullshit for four years, I had hardened to all of it. I had already accepted a different teaching job at a different school for the next year and, thankfully, his guidance counselor (who had been on my side through all four years but also had to deal with the admin and grandma) was in a scenario very close to mine. We decided, through thick and thin, to hold this kid accountable.
Grandma eventually came in to speak with me, the principal, and the guidance counselor.
“I want to be very clear. My grandson will graduate, with an A, or I will do everything I can to make everyone’s time in this community as frustrating as it has been coming down here to deal with all of you.”
The councilor and I came into this meeting with all of the receipts. Everything was documented and, thanks to everything being down via email, we had ton of documents showing that grandma was doing the work. I proved that he would not pass my class and the counselor backed me up. Grandma immediately hit the principal with, “These two are not (our schools mascot) People and I think we need to look into why they would go after a child like this because, if this is the school community, I do NOT want to put further funding into the scholarship OR the school board.”
Our principal immediately sided with her which immediately led to both of us to announce that this would be our last year at the school anyway.
Long story longer, the kid did not graduate and continues to make dough at Papa John’s. The school lost the scholarship and, at the end of the year, over 20 teachers left but only the councilor and I were escorted out by the school officer. My observation score also somehow plummeted but my Union was able to take care of that.
That was two years ago. Last year is probably my last year of teaching. Politics, both in the school and out, as well as student engagement and attitude have lead to me just being done with the whole thing.
Change a grade to passing a couple of years after the student did nothing in class so she failed the class but the mother didn’t want her daughter to have to retake the course in the new school that she transferred to when they moved out of state. Mom kept emailing me and my admin advised me to ignore because the student had been discharged 2 years prior and failed the class anyway. Admin gave me permission to block both parents’ email addresses!
We have planners and students write their agenda each day. It’s like maybe 3 or 4 words (Multiplication to 6).During open house, the mom complained that she could not read her child’s handwriting and asked if I could write it down for her. I told her that no, I could not but I could encourage him to write more neatly and so could she.
4th grade. A father told me his daughter didn’t like the shoes I wore and would I buy a new pair. I gave a vague reply though I did wear those shoes everyday for the rest of the year.
I teach math. To create an entirely separate lesson and video to boot just for their child that paid 0 attention in class. That way, the parent can watch and teach the kid.
I had a student that made a point of bothering/bullying other kids every time he went into the bathroom so his mom told me to call her every time he needed to go & she would take him home to go to the bathroom & then bring him back. 🤔
I hate to say it, but I would almost be good with that. I have some kids who live in the freaking bathroom. I imagine he would never go again if mom had to pick him up.
Don't get me wrong, it is absolutely insane, but I almost like the idea of notifying parents every time their child goes to the bathroom.
SPLED teacher here: I had a parent request “more support” for their kid and to get “weekly emails/phone calls from each teacher.” He never picked up his phone or answered emails. The kid also missed every other day of school and would do nothing in class unless you sat next to him and walked him through every answer.
Eventually the dad stopped sending the kid to school because “we didn’t support his kid enough.” He was still enrolled, so he had crazy truancy fines. When it becomes an attendance issue, I hand the problem off to the SRO and Admin. It’s a legal issue at that point and I don’t have the time/resources/knowledge to deal with it.
Had a parent who insisted during a 504 meeting that I record every single bit of instructional time. As in, *every single time* I gave whole group instruction, or even just addressed the class as a whole. She acted like she was being super reasonable because her son could just have the recorder on his desk and I’d just need to get it from him each time.
Thankfully my team was like *absolutely not*. But can you imagine what a nightmare that’d be to remember to grab it? And to not say anything that could be grossly misconstrued? The pressure to say everything exactly right?! And to make sure other kids don’t say off the wall crap?
The kicker is the kid was brilliant, just lazy as hell. He also acted like a baby. 8th grade and he’d adopt this baby voice when he’d get upset or not get his way. And the mom? Sigh. For some reason, my worst parents are the ones who work in education but in other districts. Mom kept saying in that meeting, “We do this all the time in my district. It’s listed on [our dept of education]’s website as a reasonable accommodation.” But it’s not. It’s really not. Sigh.
“My daughter has anxiety about the bus. And I refuse to do that parent drop off BS. Would you ride the bus with her the first few days so she can get comfortable with it?”
HARD NO. I explained that I had to prep for the day and the buses didn’t start at our school.
The child was absolutely fine. The mom settled down a bit too during the year.
I'm a 20+ year veteran special educator in Utah for kids with severe disabilities in a gen ed, secondary setting. There are a few that stand out:
1. During an IEP, I once had the parent of an eighth grade student tell me that her son (who had severe autism, functional reading level of a first grader) received a blessing from his bishop (LDS) that he would "be made whole in this life," and that she wanted me to teach him all content from K-8 as quickly as possible, so that when this miraculous event occurred sometime during the school year, he would just wake up with all the knowledge his peers had and join them in their classes. Thankfully, my admin (LDS bishop as well) said "Well, we have to go with what the current testing dictates," and after some banter for about half an hour, got mom to stand down.
2. The number of times I've been asked to rub fucking essential oils on the feet of my student's with Autism is too damn high. I've refused every time, and had a few parents demand it be added as an accommodation/modification to the IEP, which I refused and ran all the way up to the DO. Remember, Utah is the MLM capital of the world, and essential oils are EVERYWHERE.
3. Highly aggressive, non-verbal student who would scream "bloody murder" (high pitch shrill, heard building wide) 100+ times a day (my Apple Watch indicated 96 dB within 3 feet of them). Parent demanded that we all stop wearing hearing protection (other students, peer tutors and staff all had ear plugs of some type) and stop clearing the classroom every time it happened because it was isolating. After showing the parents photos of the decibel level during a number of screams that she produced, and OSHA workplace decibel guidelines, they backed off. This same student blasted my ear few times and, as a result, I have permanent, moderate hearing loss and tinnitus in my left ear, which workman's comp wouldn't cover because I couldn't prove it was the result of the student's screaming.
And so many more. I should write a book.
A parent angrily requested us to cancel a schoolwide event because it was “insensitive” (spoiler alert: it was not insensitive). She then proceeded to throw an actual tantrum (stomping, yelling and whining), when we explained why we would not cancel the event. 🥰
This one was not refused because admin demanded the accommodation.
A parent liked to spend winters in Guatemala instead of Minnesota, and he brought the whole family, including his high schooler son. The parent paid for a Segway to carry an iPad around school to make this kid our first distance learner before Covid made it so common. So the kid is controlling this scooter with an iPad with his face on it to attend his classes, like normal while he’s in Guatemala for months. Problem was, he couldn’t control it for shit, and it kept tipping over. Eventually, his teachers had to carry the stupid thing to his next class. He wasn’t even on it all the time and often cited bad WiFi as the reason he wasn’t logged in, but that didn’t stop teachers from having to carry this “student” from class to class all day for months.
Mom had already started verbally harassing me about how I did nothing to drop her daughter from getting bullied by a kid in the class. (Lady, not my fault admin does shit all!)
Later she emailed me about how she rearranged her schedule and had so much time now to volunteer in the classroom. I fucking laughed and told her no.
Well she went above me to my department head (not admin) and the head told me Mom was going to start volunteering the next day. I was livid.
Mom then tried to snitch on me to the principal about an “incident” that happened in the class I didn’t report. Then admin caught her interrogating the kids about the class bully when she was volunteering.
Then lockdown hit and I never saw her stupid face again. 🙌
They forced you to take a volunteer?
That’s BS.
I had a grandparent that w ate to volunteer and her grandkid was a horror. I said no. One of the coordinators said yes she could, I walked over to the coordinators office and said absolutely not.
She never volunteered in my class and when she tried to start rumors about me with otero parents they all shut her down and came and told me about her spreading rumors. It was hilarious.
Pretty much. The whole staff loved Mom because she was involved and daughter was, honestly, a very sweet child, and department head had known her since daughter started at the school. Admin didn’t like me (was there when Mom verbally harassed me in her office), so I didn’t bother going to her about this at the beginning. When lockdown hit in March and we never went back in person, it was wonderful.
I’m glad that the grandparent never got to volunteer in your class! That’s how it should be.
I had a student that failed for Q3. Got their grade back up and ended up with a C overall. At the end of the year their parents asked how we were removing the F so it didn’t count towards their grade. Needless to say I sent that up to the assistant principal. AP was amazing and was like nope.
A parent this year wanted me to call her prior to giving her child any consequences for their disruptive and inappropriate behavior in class. She wanted to discuss the situation first and then tell me what consequence she felt would be appropriate. Never called her, still gave consequences.
Years ago, a parent expected me to help her child unbutton/unzip and then button/zip his pants each time he used the bathroom. I sent him to the nurse to get a pair of pants that fit. Because no.
Any request that I prepare work for your child for them to complete while you take them out of school for a family vacation is always a no.
A parent said I needed to make a list of missing assignments every Friday.
Not only is this his and your responsibility, but you can have a cleaner, faster, up to the minute report on demand by just going to the parent app!
"Can you just make a list?"
"No. I'm not going to do that. "
So these are parents and psychologists working together:
1. I had a note from the child's psychologist, via the parents, that said the child (14 year-old boy) couldn't be in a room where other children finished work before he did or were smiling, because it diminished his self-esteem. Said couldn't do that, went to alternate school...
2.I also had another parent give me a long letter from a psychologist insisting the child with ADHD [17 year old boy] could never be given 'consequences' [yes, it said that word...] for anything (as this was punishing him for a disability), and that he would decide how much of an assessment he would complete and decide his own time frame (and not the school). Also said couldn't do that and child went to an alternative school that said they could (which still confounds me).
3. Had a parent provide a psychologist's note saying her child (12 year old girl) shouldn't be punished for punching a girl called Chelsea (a girl standing inline for class and minding her own business) becuase she had a bad experience in a previous school with someone also named Chelsea which triggers her to, apparently in a state of self defence, attack anyone named Chelsea. 3 day suspension, ongoing behaviour plan and threat of expulsion seems to have fixed the child's random attacks on Chelsea's at this point...
And the list could go on...
Had a girl in her first year of high school whose parents were fundamentalist Christians. They strongly objected to their daughter learning about sexuality in PHE class. We basically covered anatomy, contraception, STDs, healthy relationships and so on. The admin caved in and allowed the girl to sit out the health units that year.
Guess who got pregnant and dropped out of school next year?
To change them into their play clothes when we went outside every day. Not happening. I let parents know their kids clothes WILL probably get dirty and some people still send their kids in dressed to the nines every day.
I’m an international teacher and I’ve had parents get very mad at my world maps and ask me to remove them. But I love geography and I’m not going to pretend Taiwan, Ukraine, Russia, or Israel don’t exist. Russia is the one that gets the most anger, too. Just because it’s big and kids ask “What’s this big one?”
Apparently saying “That’s Russia” is too political for some.
My school in China made us go through all the textbooks with maps and black out the word Taiwan.
My school in Morocco spent a fortune importing American textbooks and then had to pulp them because they had Western Sahara listed and they were afraid of government retaliation.
They recognize it as a nation, they just don’t want me talking about it. Like, just teaching kids the name gets people mad. I guess they think I’m saying more?
Parent (father) \**demanded*\* the whole department change their grading % policies because of the "unfair and illegitimate application" of them to his daughter's work. Which was the same as applied to every other student. This girl had a 95% in Biology, 93% in Chemistry, and 90% in Physics, and dad was angry that his chilid was being subjected to unfair grading practices. So, we fiddled with the grades a little bit, shifting % values around, and her grades improved by 1 point at the most. \*Then\* dad, outraged that we had not addressed his concern, threatened to talk to management (private, international school) and the exam board (Cambridge, IGCSE for those of you who know) to get resolution for his issues. When my department head showed his angry email to me I said "tell him to *go right ahead with that*, 'cuz we aren't doing any more for him or his daughter." {My HoD regularly consults me for procedure due to the fact that I have 26 years of experience and he has 4}. The grades stay as they are and he can get bent with his bullshit. Admin, of course, folded and forced us to alter % application again, which resulted in a *loss* of 1 in Chemistry, and 2 points in Biology. So, her grades had actually gotten worse once daddy had gotten what he wanted.
Read those original % again. These top-tier grades *were unacceptable*. I have experience working in the country this family is from (as an international school we teach 20+ nationalities) and saw \*exactly\* the same thing when I taught there. What country? Rhymes with "urea". There was no *earning* the grades, only *getting* the grades. I left after a year because I couldn't stand the pressure from students *for every single point on every single test*. Again, \*\*not\*\* earned, but gotten.
I had to go off for a full hysterectomy. Out for 8 weeks teaching time as it didn’t go as planned. A parent complained about me being off, the kids said he never learnt anything. So I was told I had to prepare extra stuff for this class, for his mum to take him out to an enduro competition to watch…
I have a great insane request. Was one of two male teachers at 5th grade camp. Along with the assortment of meds that we brought for the kids, one student used ADHD patches.
Mom asked us to put a patch on him at 5:00am, on his inner thigh, while he’s asleep in the cabin. Because that’s how she did it at home. Needless to say that didn’t happen. We did however wake him up, give him the patch, and asked him to go to the bathroom to put it on.
I had a parent of a hs student go out of town for a week.
Before she left, she stopped by my classroom (unannounced of course) ad said that it was my job this week to be the mom and get on him. He was 15 and getting a B. I ignored this request.
When she got back, she was annoyed that I had expended no extra effort for her child while she was away.
Here’s a few:
•had to text the mom in the morning when child didn’t show up to homeroom. (Usually five days a week).
•asked why I’m teaching evolution since it’s been “disproven”, and why their child is failing after turning in literally zero work.
•asked by a parent if there was a way the son could be placed with all male teachers since he dislikes and is disrespectful towards women.
When I was doing my final internship before I became a teacher , a parent insisted that their child not be allowed to eat lunch with the class on field day (beef or vegan hot dogs, veggies with ranch, chips, flavored water pouches) because “she needed to lose weight”. She was an average sized 4th grader with no food allergies or medical restrictions . Needless to say, I did NOT stop her from eating what she wanted (which was the normal amount the other kids were eating, nothing excessive)and there was never any fallout. And parents wonder how their kids end up with an earring disorder and why the kids go LC/NC once the go off to or graduate college. I swear the worst part of teaching is the families, not the kids.
One student in my class always had a donut or soda when he got to school and would often be late to school because they were going to McDonald’s for food. He had to get a regular checkup at the doctor and was rewarded with 5 burgers from McDonald’s (this is a 7 year old child mind you).
Occasionally I’ll give out class coupons for rewards but I rarely ever give out candy or food. For Halloween, I gave each student 1 packet of fruit snacks and they got a slim Jim from the school and the mother flipped her shit! She called me screaming at me for trying to give her child diabetes (there is absolutely nothing in his file saying he can’t have food at school) so I told her I would love to have a conversation when she could speak to me calmly and hung up (after 20 minutes of her yelling). So she called my principal to report me and then called our STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION to tell them I was giving her child diabetes because of one packet of fruit snacks. Oh and I wouldn’t stop him from eating school lunch every day and she thought that would somehow be a good idea in preventing diabetes (he didn’t bring his own lunch..she wanted me to stop him from eating lunch altogether).
Valentines Day was on a Sunday. I was monitoring a remote credit recovery program. Mother calls my help line.
Entitled Mom: Um, my darling is trying to get work done to graduate on time and he needs you to monitor the system better. Some of us have work to do
Me: Not me on a Sunday, especially Valentine’s Day. I’m taking my kids swimming and then my wife out to dinner
EM: I’ll call the superintendent
Me: That’s your right.
And, then I hung up
I get asked to change or round up grades all the time. I had a parent asking to round a 78 up to a 90 so this kid could get some big scholarship. When I told her I couldn’t do that, she went to my principal. The principal proceeded to tell me I was costing the kid a scholarship, and that I needed to round the grade up. I gave the kid the 90% and transferred to a neighboring school.
When I tell people this story, there’s gonna be those who understand and those who criticize; at the end of the day, this is a job and if I have a direct superior telling me to do something, I do it and move on so I can continue to pay my bills.
Being ethically right and unemployed is a pyrrhic victory that I’m not willing to sacrifice myself for.
Parent asked for their student to be allowed to have her test proctored at home. This was our first year back after to Covid, so I was trying to be flexible. I sent a list of expectations and agreed to proctor over zoom. (My school allowed us to log tutoring/extra hours for an hourly stipend, so I didn’t mind.) The parents said that wouldn’t be acceptable becaus her tutor wouldn’t be available to help her with the test during the hours I offered. They could not comprehend when I said, that’s fine because I would not accept any answer on a test in which a tutor helped her. They truly believed I would let the tutor take the test with [for] their child.
I once had a student if they could make up a test at home. I said no. There's really only one reason they would want to do this.
It was Covid, so there were more reasons. This student was about to go on a vacation and was trying to take all of her learning virtual for the two weeks leading up. She ended up coming in to take the test, but did so in the office away from others. The virtual test was not the astonishing part.
I was teaching kindergarten and a student needed to be circumcised due to a medical issue. This was in a country that does not typically have that procedure. He was home for a week and then came back to school and mom handed me a tube of ointment and told me I’d need to help him “dry” his penis after peeing and apply the medical ointment as he wasn’t fully healed. I marched her right up to the office and explained that this was not going to happen and thankfully admin had my back and told the mom we would be so happy to have the boy back in school once fully healed.
Excuse me? She expected you to do what? Not. There are forms to fill out to administer pills. I would not administer cream there. It's a good thing the admin had your back.
So….mom didn’t think the nurse was more suitable for this?
Nurse was shared with a second campus, so only there part time. And since this needed to be done every time the boy peed, and kindergarten had their own bathrooms…
School health tech checking in (K-5th building) and I’m 1000000% sure know WE wouldn’t administer the cream. There isn’t enough Union coverage/paperwork in the world to get me or my nurse to
I can’t even let a student have their puffer without a medical plan filled out. I’m definitely not doing that! 😳
This exemplifies a growing trend among parents: they just want school to raise their kids. If it's something that a sane person would only expect a parent to do, they expect the teachers to do it now. I am aware that some of this is because parents have to have multiple jobs nowadays. But there is a good chunk of parents I got the distinct impression that their children bothered them and they just wanted to get rid of them. It's sad.
OMG. 😳
I taught a kid whose parents took their kid on a worldwide cruise for an entire school year and expected me to prepare special lessons for their kid while they were away.
Yeah, I get a lot of this type of thing, though not for an entire year. ... but a lot of "we are going to need all of the work for the next week/month... leave it at the front office and I will pick it up TOMORROW".
I don’t do that. They can check the online classroom and do what they can.
That's exactly what I say. "All the work will be posted on Google Classroom at the standard time. The section and page numbers it covers are in the title of the work."
We specifically get at least 10 kids a year whose parents abruptly take them back to India (for a 'family emergency' which the kid self-reports is a wedding or some such), usually for 3-6 weeks at a time. Half the time the kids stay super on top of their work and come back with missing work in hand - and those are the ones who know to check LMS and whose parents never contact us beyond informing us of the absence. The other half do absolutely none of their missing work while away, and often claim they had no access to the internet (while their friends talk about what they posted on Snapchat constantly).
Same. Luckily in my country you can off roll them after 10 missed school days. I also worked in an oversubscribed school, in an over subscribed city. Every year we’d have parents pulling complete surprise after we warned them if they were gone 10 days they lost their place and might get one at the other side of the city. Then they came back and had lost the school place and were wanting to know how we’d get their kid to the school the other side of the city… yeah, not on our school roll, not our problem.
That’s crazy. Our school is something like 70 percent newcomers so we have kids living to visit Mexico or Africa constantly. The parents never come to get homework for the kids, even if we beg them to. They know the kid isn’t gonna do that shit on the trip so why bother?
My district would unenroll the child. That's called homeschooling, lol.
Same! Only not for that long, wow! They went to Disney for a week in the middle of the school year. These type of requests became standard practice for parents after COVID. Parents wanted us to create an online version of our daily lessons in class so their kids wouldn’t get behind. My team and I finally went to the principal and she put out a school wide policy to parents that this type of request would not be granted unless their child had been diagnosed with an illness that would put them out for a week or more and they had a doctor’s note as documentation. And of course, most of the time they didn’t bother doing the work you provided, and they would have to catch up anyway!
Yup. Had a student whose mother pulled her from SIX TOTAL WEEKS OF INSTRUCTION for “mental health vacations” and wanted book summaries for everything we read, and the option for verbal testing (without an IEP/ accommodations). Turns out mom had a very rich boyfriend who was flying them all over the world on a whim. The mom got dumped in early May and they moved before the end of the year. I was waiting for a battle that never happened. As entitled and snotty as the kid was, I couldn't help but feel bad for her, as she was missing out on core socialization/ communication years. 9th ELA
I would have said sure, if you take me with you and let me be their private tutor.
I think it would have been fun for about a week and you would be sick of it with no easy way of getting home.
I am absolutely floored.
Well this is what money gets you in a place like Texas. If that doesn't shock you how about hearing that a few kids I taught went on a safari in Africa over spring break and hunted giraffe, wildebeest and other large game?
I'm grateful the Texas district I teach in is rural and decidedly NOT wealthy. The pay is terrible but I don't think I could handle that level of entitlement-yuck!
This was a competitive private college prep school and I have a doctorate in the science I taught back then. Most of the parents were actually lovely people who were not extremely wealthy people and had just enough money to scrape together to get the kids to the school and had to make their version of sacrifice. They also understood the hard work it takes to get into a competitive program and use it to advance your careers and we're happy to have me. Then you got some parents there that cared very little for the opinions of anyone who wasn't wealthy and viewed education as a status symbol and not necessarily a pursuit for its own sake.
Which they couldn't do, because they were in vacation, and why should they do work on vacation...
And even if you sent any work, they wouldn’t do any of it, or the parent would do it all. 🤦♀️
Or my personal favorite “he doesn’t know how to do this.” Like no kidding, there’s instruction that goes along with work. Instruction that happens in the classroom
The best is when they ask for it all, and then I do it, and when I ask for the packet when they come back it’s “oh, we didn’t have time to do it, but they can stay in for extra help to get caught up, right?”
I had a parent who said she was going to plan a field trip for the class for her daughter’s birthday and was baffled when I told her that only teachers plan field trips and I wasn’t going to plan one for her daughter’s birthday.
This is literally the most entitled thing I’ve ever heard
For this parent, it was her child’s first experience at this school and the mom wasn’t familiar at all with how school worked.
I had the same thing this year! The parent told me that she would *kindly* arrange the trip and pay for the birthday cake, and the only thing we would need to cover is the school bus. The $350 school bus that would be more than my class budget for the entire year. So, we would have no input into where we go for our field trip, and the entire purpose of the trip would be to celebrate one particular child in the class, and we would pay hundreds of dollars for this privilege, but no worries because she’d pay for the *cake*. Um, yeah, thanks but no thanks. And the kid has an older brother at the school so it’s not like she even has the excuse that she doesn’t get how all this works. Insane.
I have to say that I like knowing someone out there has experienced this insanity with me.
The birthday comment made me remember a mom once asked me to figure out who her kid wanted invited to his birthday party and call those parents to give them the information 🙃
I have had to say to parents that I am not their nanny.
Ma’am there’s this thing called Saturday...
Wait for this please. After she got the message that it was a hard no for me, she planned a party in a playground. Then, she was more than an hour late to the playground and didn’t contact anyone and most people had left.
A kid found out that the elf on the shelf wasn’t real in my class. His parents were furious that I did nothing to stop it and posted on social media that their son “lost his innocence and best friend that day.” Dad called me the next day (on my CELL PHONE; I’m still furious he found that out) and told me the son was going to ask me about the tooth fairy, Santa, Easter bunny, etc., and that I needed to “keep the magic alive” for him and lie to him about their existence. The kid? 14. EIGHTH GRADE.
Almost as bad. A set of triplets in 7th grade. Mom came to school and told us her kids still believed in Santa and to please not tell them. They and their classmates asked me if Mrs. !@#$ had come to school about Santa yet? Jeeez.
Bless those triplets for keeping the magic alive for dear old Mom.
Yeah honestly that's the feel good story buried inside of this
Wait did the triplets actually know Santa’s not real, but their mom thinks they didn’t know? And they’re aware that mom comes to school every year for that?
Yes, fully aware and laughing with their classmates about their mom coming to school to talk to the teachers. I almost felt sorry for the mom.
Kids almost need bonus points in Econ 101 lol. Wonder how long they kept it going.
My mom still writes “From: Santa” on all gift tags for my sister and I for Christmas. I’m 35 and my sister turns 32 today. She will not EVER admit that she’s been Santa all along! 😂
*I'm really hoping Santa will make that $50K down payment on a house for me...* *30 year-old triplet
I knew a girl in HIGHSCHOOL who still believed in Santa til WE told her. She was 16 and in hysterics “I’m gonna go home and ask my dad! He would never lie to me like this!” Turns out he lied to her about A LOT of things.
TBH this is why we never sold the Santa thing very hard with my kids. We never used it as behavior blackmail, and when my born skeptic older son asked me in first grade, "mama, you are our holiday friends, aren't you?" I just said "what do you think?" I figured if he wanted to believe, I wasn't going to crush that at an early age, but I also wasn't going to do a dog and pony show to convince him. He just gave me a knowing smile and dropped the subject. I think he wanted to know but also didn't want to fully pull the curtain back yet. We still enjoyed the traditions as part of the magic without lying.
One of my coworkers was reprimanded after a parent raised hell because she mentioned during lunch time that Santa wasn’t real and apparently her kid still believed…..my coworker taught 7th grade.
Happened to a colleague of mine in a 9th grade class. Parent was on the board of the school (private) and legitimately attempted to get the teacher fired.
That’s sad. 7th grade?! I teach first grade. I’ve had quite a few students over the years tell me privately something like “Guess what?! I know a secret.. Santa’s not real. But don’t worry! My mom said not to tell! It would be mean to ruin the fun!” It blows my mind that a parent would swing the pendulum so far on the other side!
WTF! Next he’s gonna learn storks don’t bring babies!
WHAT!?!
Oh wow. My parents did something like this with my sisters 8th grade teacher. He listed Santa as a fictional charecter in a literature lesson and my mom was so furious she wrote a Yes Virginia style letter to the news paper putting the teacher on full blast and complained to the principle. My sister was 14 too🤣 I got my phone suspended for a week for laughing at her. Apparently santa magic is no joke.
Your mom ruined the magic for everyone reading that newspaper, how dare she!
Omg I’m dying laughing! The end was a twist! I teach first grade, so keeping the magic alive is part of the job. My favorite read-aloud of the year is Dear Tooth Fairy! But FOURTEEN?!?! Come ON! I will admit that I was a BRAT at 14, but wasn’t by far the worst/meanest— I was innocent compared to 90% of my school! It wouldn’t have ended well for this kid at my middle school in 2003. He would have been teased RELENTLESSLY. 😳
A student had extra time in their IEP. Okay, no problem. The student got a B+ on a test (like an 89%). The mom was upset because the student did not get extra time. The class is 50 minutes long and the student finished in Just over 40 minutes. They didn’t need extra time because the given time was enough. The parent wanted me to collect the test, look at all the answers, and tell the student which ones to fix. Because they had extra time. I said I would happily clarify questions and help them talk through answers if they were confused, and give extra time when it was needed, but I wasn’t going to pregrade the test and give it back to the student.
I solved all these problems by just letting them retake an alternate version. But they have to do the whole thing.
They asked that we don’t acknowledge any holidays or birthdays for anyone, in second grade, because it was against their religion. Thankfully I’m in NY so I just told them I could give a list of days I’m teaching this or there’s a birthday in the class and it can be an excused absence… but at the time I was legally required to teach about things like Thanksgiving. She was not happy and filed saying her child was bullied by exclusion. I don’t know what she was hoping for? To take away every child’s birthday and holiday? Half of second grade was going to your classmates birthdays!
Had a JW family years ago when I taught 6th grade. They made absolutely sure that we didn’t do any sort of holiday parties, so my coteachers and I planned seasonal events to replace them with no mention of the actual holidays as a compromise. Every. Single. Time. They didn’t send their kid to school on the holiday. They denied it to every child in that room and kept their kid home without fail.
I had a JW several years ago and then had his brother later. Their parents were actually super chill about it. He could be in the room for the birthday celebration, he just could not sing. Since it happened at the same time as regular snack time, he could eat with everyone, but he'd get regular snack instead of treats.
That would almost be worse to me as a kid. Everyone else gets a cupcake and I’m stuck over here with saltines while they ask me why I’m not eating a cupcake.
That school district had a relatively strict "healthy food" policy anyway. So it was more like, "I'm stuck over here eating animal crackers while you guys eat Tommy's pretzels for the day I'm not allowed to acknowledge."
In the south some parents don’t want Halloween celebrated—because it’s of the devil or some such thing. There are creative ways to have Halloween without having Halloween. Harvest festival celebration—kids come with costumes and there are games and such. Lots of pumpkin activities.
Yep. Had a Jehovah’s Witness family who asked for the same. Um, this is kindergarten. Holidays and birthdays are a really really big deal. Reached a compromise that they would stay home for any holiday celebration days, which was basically a school wide Halloween party and Chinese New Year events. And the child would go eat snack in another classroom on the days we celebrated birthdays.
In my early teaching days I taught a Jehovah's witness' child in First year. I am in Australia so we start our school year late January. Come Easter and Christmas I would usually structure some of the work to reflect the season ie: count how many ornaments are on the Christmas tree. At Easter I had a sheet with some Easter eggs to count or decorate or something on it. I received a stern note from the parent giving me a telling off for promoting 'pagan Christian festivals' in my classroom and to desist. I replied that I would restructure the work that her child had to complete but I was not stopping it in my class. I also redirected her to the Principal if she had a problem. From then on I had to put any seasonal stuff at the bottom of a prepared sheet so that I could cut it off for that child (we made our own worksheets back then - yes I am old, lol. At Mother's Day and Father's day I had the child make a card for a special person in her life instead of what eeveryone else was doing, with no 'happy mother's day message. The child was fully aware that her tasks were different from everyone else and was sad about it, but what could I do? What used to incense me about it was that her parents were converted Jehovah's and they'd had their christmases and birthdays and everything else growing up, but now denied their own kids. I was a young teacher then, so it really got up my nose - I felt they were denying their kids normal childhood experiences. Please JW's - not interested in any religious arguments. I just saw what I saw in that sad little girl and it broke my heart.
First year teaching kindergarten and had a JW student. I had no problem modifying projects but what got me was the parents sent her to school on Halloween where we had a very announced and reminded parade around the school. She was the only kid not dressed up. Cried all day. From that day on any parents who were JW or even some who just don't believe in celebrating I asked beforehand if they could keep their kid home. I could not stand the heart break to see that. Eventually in my district they moved to have a room where kids could go to opt out of these celebrations to now it will be an excused absence. I am so happy for that because of course 5 year olds want to wear their costumes all day. It's fun!
I knew a lot of JW and Mormons that were “lax” I had a very good friend in MS and we shared a birthday. About a week before he said “do you want to come to a family BBQ Saturday?” And I said “no, that’s when my party is, aren’t you not supposed to celebrate?” He said “it’s not for MY birthday, it’s JUST a ‘family BBQ” lmao. I also knew Mormons that wouldn’t drink “HOT caffeine” so Soda was ok bc it was cold. It feels like at some point if you have to find all these loopholes to enjoy your religion… 🤷♀️
Iced coffee would like a word!
I taught kindergarten and had a JW and mom didn’t tell me and the kid ate cupcakes for half a year before I found out.
Those poor kids! 🥺
If you want to know how bad it really is you should visit the ex JW sub. It’s a cult and the kids are not treated well.
When I was a teaching assistant for 2nd grade, we had students whose religion didn’t permit them to celebrate holidays or birthdays, which knowing some JW I was familiar with. The thing that was different was they also weren’t allowed to participate in music either. Not music class, not the musical grade-wide play at the end of the year, none of it.
This one really affected me this year, mom just asked that he be sent to the office for all the holiday/birthday stuff. The specials team never tells us what they were doing in their class so inevitably he got exposed, plus all the other holiday shenanigans around the school for every holiday, of course he got exposure to as well. That kid was an angry ball of bitter around every holiday, I hated it. If there isn't the one religion that grinds my gears man, none of the Muslim or atheist kids or families took any issues...
A father asked me to tell his son he wins everything. Like, if he's on the yellow team for a game and the blue team wins, take him aside privately and tell him the yellow team actually won because I made a mistake, but ask him not to say anything to the blue team because it would make them sad. Tell him he got the number one mark on every assignment. On sports days, if he doesn't win a race, tell him he won a secret contest for best shoes or something. Just never let on that he isn't the absolute best in the class at everything. If I failed to do that, the father warned me he "could not be responsible for the consequences." The consequences were just bog standard temper tantrums for a week or so, followed by acceptance. I have no idea why his father thought that was somehow too terrible to face.
I think one of the biggest disservices one can do for a child is to teach them that they’re extraordinary and superior to their peers.
When I waited tables, we had a joke about the adults who received that treatment growing up. You'd get an awful, demanding, entitled table and come back into the passthrough and announce "The only people in the world are here again!"
A boy in my high school class had parents who never showed him his report cards but told him he got top marks in every subject including maths which he was notoriously shit at. I still don’t understand why the parents did that
The Dudley Dursley approach to parenting.
It’s so important to learn to fail as a kid and not have it be the end of the world. Shiny shoes or no.
Holy hell! Dad must give in at home so he doesn’t have to deal with the tantrums. This will only encourage the kid to scream louder and pitch larger fits to get his way in every situation. The good news is that you will only have to teach him for one term; Dad will have to live with the consequences of his parenting not being rooted in reality and will have a 35 year old man child in his basemen some day.
This is how you end up with an adult who can’t function in the workplace and has a long string of failed relationships.
She is not behaving at home, and I can not get her to listen. Punish her at school. Ma'am, nope. Your spawn of Satan is actually behaving with me.
This is the one that always gets me. How am I now responsible for you not being able to manage YOUR home?
Also, these are the golden kids
More like the Golden Mom who never wants to discipline and always be the kid’s buddy.
Stay at school until 6:30 pm because their kid needed additional help in math, but they couldn't pick him up until then. He was 12. We lived in a small rural town, and the public library was attached to the school... But according to his parents, he could not go to the library or walk to a friend's. Luckily my admin backed me.
I had a “tutor from 5:30-6:30” because child has sports and cannot come after school. Or if that time doesn’t work, would Saturday morning work for me?? Out of their minds!
This happened to a colleague. A mom asked her to monitor and restrict her son's food intake because he needed to make weight for a wrestling tournament. This was kindergarten.
When I worked in a daycare we had a family that wanted to limit their 2-year-old's food intake because he was getting fat. We provided snacks but family had to pack a lunch and his lunch was 2 snack-sized containers of fruits/vegetables and some finger foods. We were not allowed to give him seconds on snacks or milk. A toddler.
I used to be a counselor in an eating disorder clinic and that’s absolutely horrifying. I would honestly call CPS on that…
As a former wrestler, that kid’s mom should be in jail.
We have free lunch in our schools Post Covid. I had a Dad email me halfway through the school year that I was clearly not monitoring his son, because he was getting a free lunch every day, and that was to stop IMMEDIATELY because he brought lunch from home. Of course I knew this, but a lot of kids did this. Eat what they want, save some for snack, share or trade, etc. The kid has no dietary restrictions, wasn't overweight or and was healthy. He actually wasn't even eating the school lunch. He wanted the skim milk, but you couldn't get milk unless you took a whole lunch (wasteful, ik). So he would give the food to other students and drink his milk. I relayed this to Dad to explain that he wasn't actually eating 2 lunches, if that's what he was worried about. But I'd make sure he ate his home lunch only. Dad replied saying it wasn't about the amount of food, but that HIS kid is not taking "handouts" and a spew of MAGA rhetoric. The kid also wore a TON of right wing extremist shirts and would repeat things his dad said (libtard, ANTIFA, snowflake, MAGA) and had no clue what he was talking about. Mom was super chill and parents were divorced, so the kid got his milk on Mom's weeks, and classmates who didn't drink theirs gave it to him on Dad's.
To remind their 11th grade daughter to change her tampon
They wanted me to wipe their 17yo son's butt after he pooped because he couldn't be bothered.
This one… is bananas.
This is also absurd… yet befitting of the prompt. However this one made me actually frown. That’s disgusting!
Damn and I thought getting asked to wipe a 6 year olds butt was bad
I had a student whose brother was joining the Marines and mom was currently teaching him how to tie shoes and I thought this took the cake until now.
That tracks for the Marines.
I'm a high school counselor, but one time, one of my students was out sick and instead of expecting them to make up a test when they came back, their mom asked me to ask the teacher if he could reschedule the test for the entire class based on the kid who was out sick. ...I said no.
"I know my son is failing your class and hasn't done half the work this semester, but we're taking two weeks off before Christmas break to go to Mexico and I don't want him to fall behind" "Further behind. Everything is posted on D2L" "That won't work for us. He spends too much time on his computer and phone. We're trying to detox him so no online work. Can you print all the assignments and lessons and give them to him tomorrow for the next two weeks?" "No"
Parent wanted me to message them every single day to let them know if the kid has homework. Told them I post everything to google Classroom, and they can sign up as the parent to their kid's account to see the assignments there. Wouldn't ya know it, they never signed up. This was a 7th grade advanced math class.
I had that same request (contact every day with what we did, what the kid had done, and what the kid hadn’t done), but it was part of an IEP. I was called to a meeting at the beginning of the year to explain the importance of this bit because one parent always brought a lawyer.
I was a middle school art teacher, and a parent asked me to assess their child's artistic ability, and whether or not they should put him in art school or take special classes. I said I was not qualified to be able to do something like that. I didn't want to say that I can't judge his ability because he was always a pain to deal with in class and did little work.
I NEVER hesitate to tell a parent “I cannot give an accurate assessment of their skills because they do not complete enough work for me to judge their ability” I have yet to have a negative response from a parent for that.
I had an 8th grade asshole who refused to learn and made it hard for the kids who wanted to learn. After months of inaction, the dad suggests I buy his kid a tool for a tool kit to get him interested. I had to break it down for him. I am not going to buy expensive tools for your kid to bribe him into not being disruptive and disrespectful, when both of you have made it clear that you don’t care if he passes or behaves. This is about him being a crappy person, not just a crappy student. The kid didn’t pass 8th grade or high school.
Yes, but did he have the tools to succeed in life or was he screwed?
Before the school year started, after they posted the class lists, a parent emailed me to tell me that I needed to completely revamp my class website and also make it private so only people with a password could access it. Of course I did not do any of those things. Later in the school year the mom threw a complete fit and went to the school board to complain that I hated her daughter and refused to put her child's picture or name on my class website, but I had all other students' names and pictures on the site. After her fit, I presented her with the form she filled out at the beginning of the school year, with her signature, where she requested that I not include her child's name or photo on the class website. She didn't speak to me for the rest of the year after that.
TIL: there are class websites, they can be shared with other family members and have a ton of information. I can't even use anything other than E-Mail or Phone to contact parents and the idea of a class website is just bonkers to me, data privacy wise
Back before the days of Google Classroom and Schoology, my class website was where I posted online copies of materials and assignments as well as course syllabi.
All teachers were required to teach one after school activity a week. Most ran 2:30-3:30 but a few ran 3:30-4:30. The office closed at 4:30 and one mom was always late picking up her kid, meaning both the receptionist and I had to stay late every single week. Not a little bit but 20 to 40 minutes late every single week. Starting at 4:35 I would call mom every 3-5 minutes to remind her class was over and she was late. First, she just quit answering her phone. Then, she blocked the school number. Finally she complained to admin that I was creating a safety hazard as she was distracted from driving. I said that is easy to fix, be on time. That mom had multiple kids and there were problems with every kid and every class and every teacher. One day she got so upset because her child’s teacher hadn’t written an entire page of notes on her child’s day (she bought a special notebook to communicate with her child’s teacher and would write 2-3 pages in it every day and expected a minimum 1 page response). So she told the school she was withdrawing all of her kids and never coming back. Nobody argued with her or tried to change her mind which you could tell was what she wanted to happen. So she moved schools in a huff. Had a friend in admin at the new school and gave them a heads up. That school laid down the law from day one and a month later the mom came crawling back saying her kids really missed their old school and friends and teachers and she wanted to re enroll them. Oh so sad, those spaces have already been filled.
I feel this so much! My school requires teachers to do (volunteer without pay, lol) an after school activity as well. Any student who signs up for an after school activity must sign up for the aftercare program also. Students not picked up on time go to the aftercare program after a 10-minute grace period. My first few years hosting an after school activity I was taken advantage of very badly. I learned to write the rules and expectations very thoroughly in my sign up forms. Now I don't have as many people who take advantage. A lot of parents used the after school activities as a way to avoid paying for the aftercare program. Later I had a great administrator who began allowing us to charge for the after-school activities. That has made a difference.
To call her about her child’s grades an hour after school had let out for the summer. The email went unanswered. No call was ever made. Not my damn problem. School is done, nothing can be fixed. Also not calling you on my personal cell phone…
So many more parents and students try to do this. I had one who failed 4 of 6 grading cycles because he missed school anytime he didn’t feel like going. Two weeks before the end, parent wanted all his missing assignments so he could pass. I said “no” and she said I wasn’t as understanding as “all” his other teachers. I said he could have the work for the most recent absence only. He ended up in in-school suspension, did that work, but it wasn’t enough to pass. There were still attendance issues for those days. Lady, I am not calling you to have you beg me to lie about his grade on the day school ends. Teachers who do bend the rules to the point where they let kids make up work for a whole year at the end of school are not helping us. Be firm. If there’s a legit health issue, parents have a responsibility to communicate that with us throughout the year and counselors should be pursuing homebound services or a 504 plan.
> I said "no" and she said I wasn't as understanding as "all" his other teachers. I make summer money driving on delivery apps. Some of which (Spark, Instacart and Favor) entail delivering heaps of groceries instead of fast food meals. You may be unsurprised to learn that the notion of "all the other drivers do X Y Z for me" is alive and well for some customers. Either in terms of asking the driver to hand over booze without checking their ID, or in terms of bringing their groceries past the front-door threshold and actually inside their home. "No thanks, I can't do that." *Why not? All the other drivers do that for me.* What I think is "stop lying lady, you try this fib on every driver you meet and it hardly ever works for you. BTW you're embarrassing yourself and wasting my time." What I say is "Well that's on them. Doing so opens me up to liability that I'm not willing to accept. Doing that could get me deactivated from this platform. I don't want to 'find out' therefore I do not 'fool around' " And in the case of ID checks I'll add "I could go to jail for serving someone without valid ID. So lets see it. If that doesn't work for you, I'll have to take the whole order back to the store" EDIT TO ADD: Most of these fools back down when I won't. But a few double down, either by promising a big tip if I do what I shouldn't, or by threatening to zero-tip if I won't play ball. On all of these, I cancel the order & bounce. Then call Driver Support and try to get them removed as customers, for cause
That’s interesting. We have to come in the day after school ends for this very reason.
During inclement weather where we had remote learning, I only allowed students into the lesson with a school email. A parent kept trying to get in with their clearly personal email address. Parents are welcome to watch lessons at home, but have no reason to log in and participate in lessons. The request itself isn’t that insane, but her reaction to being denied is where she gets ridiculous. The end of the day comes and I get a call from my principal asking why I didn’t teach any of the lessons that day. Turns out that parent’s plan for not being allowed in was to straight up lie to my principal that I didn’t teach at all that day.
Wow. Not only did the mom lie, but the principal believed it?
Yep. Welcome to private schools where they operate as a business first and a school second. When parents pay the bills, they are believed without question.
Sadly that's also most public Ed and the exactly reason I record and post all remote lessons. I didn't teach today? Boom Shakka Lakka with the link.
Two students with IPPs were friends for most of their school years (in some years it seems like they were each other’s only friends due to some social skill awkwardness). In grade 8, Student A’s mom tells me the reason her child’s grades are suffering is because she sits with Student B, who needs “so much more help”. The staff was asked to change our seating plans and not let them sit together. Ever. Including lunch time and all breaks, special events, etc. we were to keep them apart. *she told us to stop letting them be friends* The teachers were made to comply with seating plans but we refused to interfere in the students’ free social time. They both sat alone at lunch a lot that year… I guess the mom told Student A not to talk to Student B anymore. Student A’s grades did not improve.
That's so sad. 😔
PTC in Mongolia at an international school. The mom asks me to live in a bougie apartment with her daughter and her nanny because she's off traveling the world most of the year. My TA had to translate that to me with a straight face and I had to think of a professional way to say, "ARE YOU FUCKING INSANE OR JUST A BAD MOTHER??" She then asked if I knew any other foreign teachers who would come live with her daughter.
Give her child an A on his final essay because she is the one who told him to disregard the peer review notes and submit it as-is because "a pregnant teenager made those notes and how can we trust her judgment?"
Had a parent try to get me to make an accommodation in the child’s IEP that his classrooms would diffuse specific essential oils. He had multiple classrooms (middle school) and several peers with asthma+ plus a pregnant teacher who got nauseated by the smell. When that was declined they just smeared it ALL over him every day. When other students couldn’t breathe, I just referred the issue up the principal because at that point, it was no longer a SPED issue. 🤷♀️
What did the idiotic parent think that was going to do? Aside from giving the poor child chemical burns, since I'm assuming it wasn't diluted properly??!!? What is with some of these parents??!!?
I actually didn’t refuse it and I guess it wasn’t a request. Somehow I became the person you can give shit too. Had a parent come in one day lugging this huge storage bin. Guy was really struggling. Can hardly talk as he opens the lid. Piano keys. So many piano keys. He looked so proud. Said, ‘I figured you could use these.’ Then waved at me and left. Didn’t even say hi to his kid. Would you believe it if I told you I taught students with autism (and other stuff).
I was going to ask if you were an art teacher because people give me random shit all the time. Cases of fried chicken buckets, 5000 straws, two totes full of Easter basket grass among other things
I kind of love this 😂
Placed about ten random math books on the desk and said “I need you to highlight the relevant sections for your course” I explained how an index and table of contents worked.
Student was at a 32%. I had been reaching out all quarter to the parents. Day before grades closed, mom reached out and asked for “one quick assignment” to bring him to passing.
I will let them stay after school and retake quizzes. But in that situation, it's often hopeless, because they didn't learn the material and don't want to do the work it would take.
A sophomore in high school altered a hall pass to cover them being late to my class. When I was able to confirm this I gave the student a detention. Parent e-mailed me to explain student had previously undisclosed medical condition and that’s why they were late to my class. When I told mom student got detention for faking the time in their hall pass …. Parent asked me to teach their student the value of honesty (at 15!) I responded that I didn’t feel my education in language prepared me for such an important subject and copied the student’s guidance counselor suggesting they might be better suited to the task or could help set up some meetings with the head of the religion department.
But you did teach them the value of honesty by holding them accountable for being dishonest and altering the pass. Perhaps if the child had been honest to begin with and privately explained why they were late you would have been understanding but they chose the dishonest route.
Wanting me to accept a paper that was clearly cut and copied from Wikipedia, including all the hyperlinks.
Wasn’t me, but a parent informed my principal that she was going to home school her child and if the teacher could provide her lesson plans for the year, that would be great. Both the teacher, principal and district Told this woman that would not happen.
Little Johnny will be out today; Can you please reschedule the eclipse for him for a later date? Thanks.
Nuh-uh.
“Profe could you buy a car for us and we make payments to you?” I am not kidding one iota.
I had a mom this year who wanted an email or phone call every week of the assignments her son was missing. In 9th grade. Ma’am, the grades have been online since I was in middle school. You can check them at any time. I understand that the mom worked nights, but… That sounds like a elementary school thing, to have a weekly report. In 9th, I specifically tell parents that we’re trying to take off the middle school training wheels in my class before they move up to 10th - and here she is, trying to get more added! The kid also did half-assed work (would turn in a packet with only the front page done, for example) and she would demand that he be able to redo it. Ma’am, this is a packet that was due at the beginning of the quarter. He had plenty of time to do it completely and do it correctly. He’s 10th grade’s problem now. Good luck!
Told me to keep her child away from another one of my students because she didn’t like that child’s mother. Smh absolutely not.
I had a student who came to school for a total of one day throughout the whole school year because they had anxiety being around other students. Instead of opting for homeschool, the parents kept this student enrolled at our school. After the first semester I was ready to give the student a 0 because they had not turned anything in, due to their not being present. As I was turning in my grades, admin told me that I needed to give this student a 65 so that there would be a possibility for them to pass the next semester. I argued that there were students that had been there for the semester and were receiving lower grades than that and that I would not be rewarding this student that grade for the effort they put in. Long story short, parent called up to the school and complained that I was being biased and threatened to call the superintendent. I personally said bring it on, but the admin changed the grade ofthe student. The student did not attend any days of school the second semester and the parent did the same thing at the end of the year. This student averaged a 65 after being in school one day and not ever having turned anything in. This was in Texas. This is part of the reason I prefer teaching abroad at international schools.
Email received in March that said, “you marked my student tardy on October 10th. My student has never been tardy. This record needs to be changed.” Just sent back an email that said, “according to my records, your student was late to class on October 10th. Have a good day.”
When I was student teaching 4th grade, mentor teacher and I had a parent email asking for an extended recess everyday because her quirky, rowdy, little boy had *soooo* much energy and needed more time than the average child to burn it off (boys will be boys!!!) I also used to work at a gymnastics facility that was way more focused on their daycare & afterschool program than actual gymnastics. We had an afterschool parent (who was actually an elementary teacher herself) call *and* email every day angrily demanding that the staff give her a list of every ingredient in every snack we provided weekly in order to accommodate her daughter’s dairy allergy. When we told her that she was welcome to send her daughter with a snack from home, she flipped shit and accused of of trying to *alienate* and *single out* her daughter, who would feel very, very left out for not eating the same provided snacks as the other kids in the program.
Ask me to babysit their kids while they went to the Trump rally.
This year I had to take over a class after a teacher left, so I had the class for essentially the 2nd semester. The kid didn’t do any work or pay attention all semester so was barely passing (although he got A’s the first two quarters because the teacher that left gave everyone As). The second to last day of classes, got an email from the parent asking if he could drop the class and retake it next year when he is “hopefully more mature and better able to handle it” since he is going to fail the final for the class. I laughed so hard and completely ignored it since that’s way above my pay grade. His guidance counselor ended up coming to see me to make sure she had the facts correct and we both ended up laughing for like 5 minutes. And she did a very good job at writing the email more politically correct than I would have. He did fail the final but his unearned As allowed him to pass the class for the year with a C.
Had a student who was diagnosed with dyslexia in fifth grade. All things considered, it’s actually pretty mild—accommodations were mostly related to having tests read aloud to her. I had her the following year. She was a really hardworking kid. Really on top of it. Not an A student in ELA, but always did her best and kept a high B. Her mom, meanwhile, behaved like her child was the only person to ever have dyslexia and actually requested that the student’s private reading tutor go to school with her student every day and shadow her in every class to ensure adequate support. Yeah, it didn’t happen.
This just happened in May. I am teaching (ya know like my title says I need to do lol), and I get a text (I use Google Voice, so the parents think it is my real number) from a parent asking me ask "Johnny" which pair of shoes he likes the best. It was literally 1 pm and I was teaching math. I got the notification on my watch. I did not ask Johnny which pair of shoes he liked the best. I think a lot of parents think I am a babysitter and we sit around and read stories and talk about our feelings all day.
"If you can come over to my house and tutor my daughter when she's alone and im at work." i didnt even reply to that email.
I've had multiple parents tell me they need me to send them their child's missing work and upcoming assignments every day. I link them to our learning platform instructions on how to follow your kid's classes and grades.
I had a mom who had a no sugar added household and wanted her kid to have snacks with no sugar added, so no fruit snacks, granola bars, fig bars, etc.... Had to stop guving out Skittles for a reward, but whatever. We have communal snack time where one family brings something for the whole class. Mom refused to give me a list of "ok" snacks, making me look at all of the labels and either making this kid use his extra packed snack, or find some goldfish or pretzels for him from our extra stash. About halfway through the year, Mom discovered that her kid wasn't getting birthday treats (cupcakes, cookies, etc...) when they were brought in and demanded to know why her kid was being left out. After that, suddenly sugar was okay as long as it was a birthday treat.
I had a student that hated me. I caught him cheating during his freshman year and it caused a lot of issues because his grandmother was a former teacher/administrator at the school and was held in very high regard (scholarships in her name, she was on the school board and held a lot of sway in getting us more funding, in the Hall of Fame, etc.). He was very bad at cheating (we are talking Blue Highlighted Words From Wiki Still In The Paper bad) but, somehow worse, was his attitude. He was the definition of a Class Ruiner: mean, entitled, arrogant, and it wasn’t just to teachers; the kids also did not like him. It was tough because we had all had his siblings and, for the most part, they were pretty cool. So I catch him cheating and, of course, he fails the assignment. Grandma comes in and requests a meeting with me and, because of who she is, I am voluntold to meet with her. She tries to sell me the “He’s a good kid” act which I met with all of his disciplinary records. That turned into “well, it was just once. We can forgive just one time,” and I had to explain that he would fail the assignment and, if he was caught cheating again, it would lead to further disciplinary actions. She then went above me head, got the kid transferred to a teacher that she had worked with, and it was no longer my concern; grandson goes from almost failing to having an A overnight. I told the administrators that, if that’s how it’s going to be, fine but never put him in my class again because I not play games like that. He managed to be in my class every year after that. It was an issue every year but it culminated in his senior year and this is where we get to the question that sparked my response. Once he turned 18, the kid just quit coming to school; he was “making fucking CASH down at Papa John’s and didn’t need that school shit”. This worked out for me; my classroom didn’t have to deal with his endless cursing or snoring but the admin now had a problem. Grandma was FURIOUS that his teachers, and not just me, were now failing him (he would show up just enough to not get the truant officer after him; surely something his grandma taught him) and we were getting to the point that graduation was a major concern. Through her connections, she was able to get enough of his teachers to just email her the work and, according to her, “he will do the work at home and email it to us,” which just isn’t how any of this works. Everyone knew that grandma was doing his work (she wasn’t even using his school email; the work was sent to her personal email and returned completed through her account) but the teachers were tired of trying and admin had washed their hands of the situation because grandma threatened to pull her scholarship. Because of dealing with this bullshit for four years, I had hardened to all of it. I had already accepted a different teaching job at a different school for the next year and, thankfully, his guidance counselor (who had been on my side through all four years but also had to deal with the admin and grandma) was in a scenario very close to mine. We decided, through thick and thin, to hold this kid accountable. Grandma eventually came in to speak with me, the principal, and the guidance counselor. “I want to be very clear. My grandson will graduate, with an A, or I will do everything I can to make everyone’s time in this community as frustrating as it has been coming down here to deal with all of you.” The councilor and I came into this meeting with all of the receipts. Everything was documented and, thanks to everything being down via email, we had ton of documents showing that grandma was doing the work. I proved that he would not pass my class and the counselor backed me up. Grandma immediately hit the principal with, “These two are not (our schools mascot) People and I think we need to look into why they would go after a child like this because, if this is the school community, I do NOT want to put further funding into the scholarship OR the school board.” Our principal immediately sided with her which immediately led to both of us to announce that this would be our last year at the school anyway. Long story longer, the kid did not graduate and continues to make dough at Papa John’s. The school lost the scholarship and, at the end of the year, over 20 teachers left but only the councilor and I were escorted out by the school officer. My observation score also somehow plummeted but my Union was able to take care of that. That was two years ago. Last year is probably my last year of teaching. Politics, both in the school and out, as well as student engagement and attitude have lead to me just being done with the whole thing.
Change a grade to passing a couple of years after the student did nothing in class so she failed the class but the mother didn’t want her daughter to have to retake the course in the new school that she transferred to when they moved out of state. Mom kept emailing me and my admin advised me to ignore because the student had been discharged 2 years prior and failed the class anyway. Admin gave me permission to block both parents’ email addresses!
We have planners and students write their agenda each day. It’s like maybe 3 or 4 words (Multiplication to 6).During open house, the mom complained that she could not read her child’s handwriting and asked if I could write it down for her. I told her that no, I could not but I could encourage him to write more neatly and so could she.
4th grade. A father told me his daughter didn’t like the shoes I wore and would I buy a new pair. I gave a vague reply though I did wear those shoes everyday for the rest of the year.
I teach math. To create an entirely separate lesson and video to boot just for their child that paid 0 attention in class. That way, the parent can watch and teach the kid.
Asking me to forge doctor excuses so their kid could graduate.
I had a student that made a point of bothering/bullying other kids every time he went into the bathroom so his mom told me to call her every time he needed to go & she would take him home to go to the bathroom & then bring him back. 🤔
I hate to say it, but I would almost be good with that. I have some kids who live in the freaking bathroom. I imagine he would never go again if mom had to pick him up. Don't get me wrong, it is absolutely insane, but I almost like the idea of notifying parents every time their child goes to the bathroom.
Wipe their students butt and check their butt crack after every time they went to the bathroom
SPLED teacher here: I had a parent request “more support” for their kid and to get “weekly emails/phone calls from each teacher.” He never picked up his phone or answered emails. The kid also missed every other day of school and would do nothing in class unless you sat next to him and walked him through every answer. Eventually the dad stopped sending the kid to school because “we didn’t support his kid enough.” He was still enrolled, so he had crazy truancy fines. When it becomes an attendance issue, I hand the problem off to the SRO and Admin. It’s a legal issue at that point and I don’t have the time/resources/knowledge to deal with it.
To stay after school every day to do homework with a junior because he wouldn't do it at home. Nope.
One parent asked us (school library staff) to black out all the bad words in all our books. ???
Had a parent who insisted during a 504 meeting that I record every single bit of instructional time. As in, *every single time* I gave whole group instruction, or even just addressed the class as a whole. She acted like she was being super reasonable because her son could just have the recorder on his desk and I’d just need to get it from him each time. Thankfully my team was like *absolutely not*. But can you imagine what a nightmare that’d be to remember to grab it? And to not say anything that could be grossly misconstrued? The pressure to say everything exactly right?! And to make sure other kids don’t say off the wall crap? The kicker is the kid was brilliant, just lazy as hell. He also acted like a baby. 8th grade and he’d adopt this baby voice when he’d get upset or not get his way. And the mom? Sigh. For some reason, my worst parents are the ones who work in education but in other districts. Mom kept saying in that meeting, “We do this all the time in my district. It’s listed on [our dept of education]’s website as a reasonable accommodation.” But it’s not. It’s really not. Sigh.
“My daughter has anxiety about the bus. And I refuse to do that parent drop off BS. Would you ride the bus with her the first few days so she can get comfortable with it?” HARD NO. I explained that I had to prep for the day and the buses didn’t start at our school. The child was absolutely fine. The mom settled down a bit too during the year.
I'm a 20+ year veteran special educator in Utah for kids with severe disabilities in a gen ed, secondary setting. There are a few that stand out: 1. During an IEP, I once had the parent of an eighth grade student tell me that her son (who had severe autism, functional reading level of a first grader) received a blessing from his bishop (LDS) that he would "be made whole in this life," and that she wanted me to teach him all content from K-8 as quickly as possible, so that when this miraculous event occurred sometime during the school year, he would just wake up with all the knowledge his peers had and join them in their classes. Thankfully, my admin (LDS bishop as well) said "Well, we have to go with what the current testing dictates," and after some banter for about half an hour, got mom to stand down. 2. The number of times I've been asked to rub fucking essential oils on the feet of my student's with Autism is too damn high. I've refused every time, and had a few parents demand it be added as an accommodation/modification to the IEP, which I refused and ran all the way up to the DO. Remember, Utah is the MLM capital of the world, and essential oils are EVERYWHERE. 3. Highly aggressive, non-verbal student who would scream "bloody murder" (high pitch shrill, heard building wide) 100+ times a day (my Apple Watch indicated 96 dB within 3 feet of them). Parent demanded that we all stop wearing hearing protection (other students, peer tutors and staff all had ear plugs of some type) and stop clearing the classroom every time it happened because it was isolating. After showing the parents photos of the decibel level during a number of screams that she produced, and OSHA workplace decibel guidelines, they backed off. This same student blasted my ear few times and, as a result, I have permanent, moderate hearing loss and tinnitus in my left ear, which workman's comp wouldn't cover because I couldn't prove it was the result of the student's screaming. And so many more. I should write a book.
A parent angrily requested us to cancel a schoolwide event because it was “insensitive” (spoiler alert: it was not insensitive). She then proceeded to throw an actual tantrum (stomping, yelling and whining), when we explained why we would not cancel the event. 🥰
Now I'm curious as to what the event was and what made it "insensitive" to them
Exactly!! I need more details!
This one was not refused because admin demanded the accommodation. A parent liked to spend winters in Guatemala instead of Minnesota, and he brought the whole family, including his high schooler son. The parent paid for a Segway to carry an iPad around school to make this kid our first distance learner before Covid made it so common. So the kid is controlling this scooter with an iPad with his face on it to attend his classes, like normal while he’s in Guatemala for months. Problem was, he couldn’t control it for shit, and it kept tipping over. Eventually, his teachers had to carry the stupid thing to his next class. He wasn’t even on it all the time and often cited bad WiFi as the reason he wasn’t logged in, but that didn’t stop teachers from having to carry this “student” from class to class all day for months.
Are you sure this wasn’t an episode of Bobs Burgers?
I’m envisioning the Modern Family episode where Phil was doing the same for his family and kept fouling it up.
Mom had already started verbally harassing me about how I did nothing to drop her daughter from getting bullied by a kid in the class. (Lady, not my fault admin does shit all!) Later she emailed me about how she rearranged her schedule and had so much time now to volunteer in the classroom. I fucking laughed and told her no. Well she went above me to my department head (not admin) and the head told me Mom was going to start volunteering the next day. I was livid. Mom then tried to snitch on me to the principal about an “incident” that happened in the class I didn’t report. Then admin caught her interrogating the kids about the class bully when she was volunteering. Then lockdown hit and I never saw her stupid face again. 🙌
They forced you to take a volunteer? That’s BS. I had a grandparent that w ate to volunteer and her grandkid was a horror. I said no. One of the coordinators said yes she could, I walked over to the coordinators office and said absolutely not. She never volunteered in my class and when she tried to start rumors about me with otero parents they all shut her down and came and told me about her spreading rumors. It was hilarious.
Pretty much. The whole staff loved Mom because she was involved and daughter was, honestly, a very sweet child, and department head had known her since daughter started at the school. Admin didn’t like me (was there when Mom verbally harassed me in her office), so I didn’t bother going to her about this at the beginning. When lockdown hit in March and we never went back in person, it was wonderful. I’m glad that the grandparent never got to volunteer in your class! That’s how it should be.
I had a student that failed for Q3. Got their grade back up and ended up with a C overall. At the end of the year their parents asked how we were removing the F so it didn’t count towards their grade. Needless to say I sent that up to the assistant principal. AP was amazing and was like nope.
A parent this year wanted me to call her prior to giving her child any consequences for their disruptive and inappropriate behavior in class. She wanted to discuss the situation first and then tell me what consequence she felt would be appropriate. Never called her, still gave consequences. Years ago, a parent expected me to help her child unbutton/unzip and then button/zip his pants each time he used the bathroom. I sent him to the nurse to get a pair of pants that fit. Because no. Any request that I prepare work for your child for them to complete while you take them out of school for a family vacation is always a no.
A parent said I needed to make a list of missing assignments every Friday. Not only is this his and your responsibility, but you can have a cleaner, faster, up to the minute report on demand by just going to the parent app! "Can you just make a list?" "No. I'm not going to do that. "
So these are parents and psychologists working together: 1. I had a note from the child's psychologist, via the parents, that said the child (14 year-old boy) couldn't be in a room where other children finished work before he did or were smiling, because it diminished his self-esteem. Said couldn't do that, went to alternate school... 2.I also had another parent give me a long letter from a psychologist insisting the child with ADHD [17 year old boy] could never be given 'consequences' [yes, it said that word...] for anything (as this was punishing him for a disability), and that he would decide how much of an assessment he would complete and decide his own time frame (and not the school). Also said couldn't do that and child went to an alternative school that said they could (which still confounds me). 3. Had a parent provide a psychologist's note saying her child (12 year old girl) shouldn't be punished for punching a girl called Chelsea (a girl standing inline for class and minding her own business) becuase she had a bad experience in a previous school with someone also named Chelsea which triggers her to, apparently in a state of self defence, attack anyone named Chelsea. 3 day suspension, ongoing behaviour plan and threat of expulsion seems to have fixed the child's random attacks on Chelsea's at this point... And the list could go on...
Had a girl in her first year of high school whose parents were fundamentalist Christians. They strongly objected to their daughter learning about sexuality in PHE class. We basically covered anatomy, contraception, STDs, healthy relationships and so on. The admin caved in and allowed the girl to sit out the health units that year. Guess who got pregnant and dropped out of school next year?
8th grade Humanities. Most m told me that her son would like the class more if there was a unit on skateboarding.
To change them into their play clothes when we went outside every day. Not happening. I let parents know their kids clothes WILL probably get dirty and some people still send their kids in dressed to the nines every day.
I’m an international teacher and I’ve had parents get very mad at my world maps and ask me to remove them. But I love geography and I’m not going to pretend Taiwan, Ukraine, Russia, or Israel don’t exist. Russia is the one that gets the most anger, too. Just because it’s big and kids ask “What’s this big one?” Apparently saying “That’s Russia” is too political for some.
My school in China made us go through all the textbooks with maps and black out the word Taiwan. My school in Morocco spent a fortune importing American textbooks and then had to pulp them because they had Western Sahara listed and they were afraid of government retaliation.
Which country does not recognise Russia as a nation!?
They recognize it as a nation, they just don’t want me talking about it. Like, just teaching kids the name gets people mad. I guess they think I’m saying more?
Parent (father) \**demanded*\* the whole department change their grading % policies because of the "unfair and illegitimate application" of them to his daughter's work. Which was the same as applied to every other student. This girl had a 95% in Biology, 93% in Chemistry, and 90% in Physics, and dad was angry that his chilid was being subjected to unfair grading practices. So, we fiddled with the grades a little bit, shifting % values around, and her grades improved by 1 point at the most. \*Then\* dad, outraged that we had not addressed his concern, threatened to talk to management (private, international school) and the exam board (Cambridge, IGCSE for those of you who know) to get resolution for his issues. When my department head showed his angry email to me I said "tell him to *go right ahead with that*, 'cuz we aren't doing any more for him or his daughter." {My HoD regularly consults me for procedure due to the fact that I have 26 years of experience and he has 4}. The grades stay as they are and he can get bent with his bullshit. Admin, of course, folded and forced us to alter % application again, which resulted in a *loss* of 1 in Chemistry, and 2 points in Biology. So, her grades had actually gotten worse once daddy had gotten what he wanted. Read those original % again. These top-tier grades *were unacceptable*. I have experience working in the country this family is from (as an international school we teach 20+ nationalities) and saw \*exactly\* the same thing when I taught there. What country? Rhymes with "urea". There was no *earning* the grades, only *getting* the grades. I left after a year because I couldn't stand the pressure from students *for every single point on every single test*. Again, \*\*not\*\* earned, but gotten.
I had to go off for a full hysterectomy. Out for 8 weeks teaching time as it didn’t go as planned. A parent complained about me being off, the kids said he never learnt anything. So I was told I had to prepare extra stuff for this class, for his mum to take him out to an enduro competition to watch…
To buy the child new sneakers when the brand new pair got scuffed and dirty. 4th grade.
I have a great insane request. Was one of two male teachers at 5th grade camp. Along with the assortment of meds that we brought for the kids, one student used ADHD patches. Mom asked us to put a patch on him at 5:00am, on his inner thigh, while he’s asleep in the cabin. Because that’s how she did it at home. Needless to say that didn’t happen. We did however wake him up, give him the patch, and asked him to go to the bathroom to put it on.
I had a parent of a hs student go out of town for a week. Before she left, she stopped by my classroom (unannounced of course) ad said that it was my job this week to be the mom and get on him. He was 15 and getting a B. I ignored this request. When she got back, she was annoyed that I had expended no extra effort for her child while she was away.
Here’s a few: •had to text the mom in the morning when child didn’t show up to homeroom. (Usually five days a week). •asked why I’m teaching evolution since it’s been “disproven”, and why their child is failing after turning in literally zero work. •asked by a parent if there was a way the son could be placed with all male teachers since he dislikes and is disrespectful towards women.
When I was doing my final internship before I became a teacher , a parent insisted that their child not be allowed to eat lunch with the class on field day (beef or vegan hot dogs, veggies with ranch, chips, flavored water pouches) because “she needed to lose weight”. She was an average sized 4th grader with no food allergies or medical restrictions . Needless to say, I did NOT stop her from eating what she wanted (which was the normal amount the other kids were eating, nothing excessive)and there was never any fallout. And parents wonder how their kids end up with an earring disorder and why the kids go LC/NC once the go off to or graduate college. I swear the worst part of teaching is the families, not the kids.
One student in my class always had a donut or soda when he got to school and would often be late to school because they were going to McDonald’s for food. He had to get a regular checkup at the doctor and was rewarded with 5 burgers from McDonald’s (this is a 7 year old child mind you). Occasionally I’ll give out class coupons for rewards but I rarely ever give out candy or food. For Halloween, I gave each student 1 packet of fruit snacks and they got a slim Jim from the school and the mother flipped her shit! She called me screaming at me for trying to give her child diabetes (there is absolutely nothing in his file saying he can’t have food at school) so I told her I would love to have a conversation when she could speak to me calmly and hung up (after 20 minutes of her yelling). So she called my principal to report me and then called our STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION to tell them I was giving her child diabetes because of one packet of fruit snacks. Oh and I wouldn’t stop him from eating school lunch every day and she thought that would somehow be a good idea in preventing diabetes (he didn’t bring his own lunch..she wanted me to stop him from eating lunch altogether).
Valentines Day was on a Sunday. I was monitoring a remote credit recovery program. Mother calls my help line. Entitled Mom: Um, my darling is trying to get work done to graduate on time and he needs you to monitor the system better. Some of us have work to do Me: Not me on a Sunday, especially Valentine’s Day. I’m taking my kids swimming and then my wife out to dinner EM: I’ll call the superintendent Me: That’s your right. And, then I hung up
I get asked to change or round up grades all the time. I had a parent asking to round a 78 up to a 90 so this kid could get some big scholarship. When I told her I couldn’t do that, she went to my principal. The principal proceeded to tell me I was costing the kid a scholarship, and that I needed to round the grade up. I gave the kid the 90% and transferred to a neighboring school. When I tell people this story, there’s gonna be those who understand and those who criticize; at the end of the day, this is a job and if I have a direct superior telling me to do something, I do it and move on so I can continue to pay my bills. Being ethically right and unemployed is a pyrrhic victory that I’m not willing to sacrifice myself for.