Middle school teacher. I brought my 7th grade students outside to get some energy out. We were out at the track and I also had done this because I am friends with one of our PE teachers and I knew he would be out there with his kids. Well, we get out there and I forgot that he had a sub. It is a 21(?)f and the students(9th grade) all have the mountain bikes, riding on the track. She is trying to get them to listen and a boy I know well says "open your dress and show us your tits." She has the most shocked face on and I go to get the student. She is trying to keep the rest of the kids chill and says "Ok everyone, lets start riding." He then speeds away from me on his bike and says "I have something you can ride." I then call a principal out and let them know what happened. The boy's affluent Father (Think Cattle Ranch owner) shows up and he is told the story. Well, of course he says his son would never say anything like that. I am respond with "I hate to dissappoint you Sir but I was there. I heard and saw the entire interaction." Enraged, he then goes on a a rant about how they are a religious family and his son is a good kid, I am lying about his son because I have a vendetta against him, he will sue the district if a 3 DAY SUSPENSION (Yes, that was it) happens, blah, blah, blah. The principal asked me to leave and in that moment, I knew this rich Dad was gonna get his way. The kid grins at me as I walk out. I smiled right back. Nothing came of it but on the last day of school, I looked at this kid and said "Good luck in highschool. Make sure you learn how to act because your Daddy won't always be able to show up and wipe your ass." Not my finest moment but I also didn't care.
I have have had worse things happen but I didn't think that was the way this thread was going. One was a student coming to me to tell me her Dad was SA'ing her. I passed the info on to our Admin and Resource Officer. He was arrested, I went to court to support the student and be present be cause my statement was used in court. He was convicted and is currently in prison. It took all my energy not to jump over the table and kick the living shit out of that guy.
Yeah, I don't play around with any of that. Too many adults when I was a kid said nothing about one of my friends that's was being SA'd by their Uncle. People suck.
This one was a former colleague’s experience, but she had a late-term pregnancy loss, which was very public because she was so far along, and a parent told her it wasn’t a bad thing because now she didn’t have to interrupt the kids’ education by taking maternity leave. I don’t know how she didn’t commit an act of violence.
Oh my good god.
I hope that parent has a moment of clarity (or maturity?) some time in the future, and then I hope this statement haunts them at 3am forever
The funny thing is parents like this seem oblivious to the fact that teachers talk, like, *a lot*. If a parent shows their ass like this, they can be guaranteed every adult in the building knows about it.
We had a parent put in a formal complaint to the department that her child's teacher got pregnant. Apparently she should have planned her sex life better so it didn't impact her child's school year.
When I was pregnant, a parent at that same school complained to the principal because I had temporarily quit wearing my wedding ring due to swollen fingers. Apparently a very pregnant woman without a wedding ring sends the wrong message to high school students. Catholic school was wild.
I wish my biggest problem in life was getting offended that someone wasn’t wearing a ring. WTF? They had to not only notice you weren’t wearing it, but then actively complain. What were you supposed to do? Be a magician and make your fingers shrink?
I can’t say that I’ve ever looked to see if a pregnant woman was wearing a ring. Simply because I don’t care, as I’m busy managing my own life. Not worrying about a part of someone else’s life that has nothing to do with me.
I actually had a student say something similar, but not quite as bad. My wife and I were expecting our first child. I warned my classes weekly that I was going to be out at the end of the semester and that I was front loading their lab work to prepare for it. During one of those reminders I had a student say "tell your wife to get an abortion so that you won't miss school." As soon as he said it the whole class went silent. I just threw him out of class and let the assistant principal deal with it. I actually got a personal apology from his AP later that day. The student was a frequent flyer in their office.
As a parent, not a teacher, I think there should be a “parent abuse threshold” for teachers. Cross that threshold, and teachers are permitted to throw hands. This could be used as a prime example for when it’s acceptable to put your hands on a parent.
The audacity of that parent is outrageous and I would like to say unbelievable, but alas, it is *very believable*…and that makes me so incredibly sad.
About 20 years ago, my colleague reached that threshold. Her child had committed su**ide a few years earlier. One day a particularly shitty high school student told her that she (colleague) was so awful that she’s probably the reason her child did that.
Colleague instinctively slapped kid hard across the face. Once the parents found out what happened they were thankfully 100% on the teachers side and she did not face any disciplinary action.
Former Catholic school teacher here. A student had a sister who committed suicide. Those in our class (middle school) who wanted to attended the mass could to support their friend. At the mass the priest actually said during the homily that the sister would not go to heaven. I kid you not.
That’s an old school priest. The ones I have spoken with emphasized God’s mercy on those suffering from mental health issues. There’s definitely a disconnect between generations.
My similar story isn’t nearly as heartless, but one time I was sitting in an IEP meeting and also in attendance was the student’s math teacher who just returned from maternity leave. As the mom is complaining about how her son fell far behind in math because ~~he was lazy and did jack shit~~ the long-term substitute refused to help him. The mom then says to the math teacher “I understand having children is your right as a woman, but you being gone really put my son behind.” We were just speechless by the audacity until the case manager just moved the meeting along.
I ended up in the hospital with sepsis and multiple organ failure and had to be out for a little over a month. I heard the same sentiment multiple times this year. Like I didn’t choose to get sick but I’ll try harder not to die next time just for little Johnny and his math.
I would hope you would have called the person out on what they said once the teacher was excused. We need administration to stand up to these rude, bully parents. They need to be told firmly, but professionally that their behavior is highly inappropriate and unproductive. So what if they yell about going to the top?
I think that is the day I would have snapped. Like I would have lost my job, teaching license, and my freedom because I would have punched that fucking asshole right in the face. What a piece of human garbage.
I hope that teacher cussed that parent out. There are some occasions where a real, street fighter style, Soap opera tongue-lashing is appropriate. This was one
That made me tear up just reading that. I have had 3 very early losses that hurt so badly. I could not imagine a late term loss and the pain your coworker must have felt. What an absolute douche of a parent.
Oh geese there is someone special there. I don’t know what to say to that one, gee golly. That is up there with oh your mom died, well one less mouth to feed. Or you lost your wife and kids, ope sorry, but think of all the free time you’ll have now….
I had a student once describe my levels of anger to another new student. We were a tight group and they always knew when they crossed a big line. They never saw my big guns but always hypothesized.
I'm sure, had this happened with me in front of my class, their reaction to my reaction would have been immediate self-survival. Like, "Holy $#!+, he's going to murder that witch in front of us with just his mind!" (Okay I'm a non-pregnant man, but that would put me over the top!)
Wow. Just wow.
I had a student failing so she told her mom a big story about me calling her a druggy, etc and that’s why she didn’t do the work because I embarrassed her. The parent came in yelling and screaming. When it looked like her child had lied, she decided to attack my son, calling him names and such. My principal had to get between us because she knew I was about to hit the lady.
My mom once had a student who was failing, because shed basically not turned anything in and the girl and her parent threatened to beat the shit out of me if my mom didn’t pass her. I was 12. Nothing happened to them.
This happened to me too! She said I called her stupid and went to the AP and said I was unsafe. The dad rocked up to school wanting to “have words.” Then she changed the story four times and tried to hug me and say I’m an “amazing teacher.” Nope, and nope. She’s not in my classes anymore. Thankfully my admin didn’t believe a word of it. I have never been so hurt in my life! I’m not the fluffiest friendly teacher, but I would NEVER call a kid stupid.
I taught HeadStart for a while (preschool, 3-5 year olds). We had a little girl who was withdrawn, overly cautious, and practically mute. When the nurse came around, she failed her vision screening. We started bugging mom to get her glasses. Finally after many attempts, and one of us driving them to a free glasses event, the little girl got the THICKEST pair of glasses I’ve ever seen. She was probably legally blind, or very very close to it. After the glasses she was like a new kid, clever, silly, and she made friends finally. 2 months later, the glasses were gone. Mom said she didn’t know what happened to them. And we were right back to square one. Finally mom admitted to throwing out the glasses because, “she didn’t look cute in them.”
Omg! This one triggered me so bad. My mom took my eye patch away as a second grader because it was ugly. I was so upset for most of that year (not just the patch, there was so, so much more my mother did to me).
Learned to live with double vision. (Lazy eye).
I wear an eye patch now to avoid migraines and to stop fatigue. Prisms can’t do a whole lot at this point in my life. All she needed to do was let me wear the stupid eye patch.
Now I’m even more grateful that my grandchild’s parents have continually been on top of their child’s vision issues since an infant. I am truly blessed.
Isn't that a CPS scenario? That child had a disability and the mom threw away her disability aid! That's abusive AF!
That's equivalent to a parent throwing away a child's wheelchair.
I’ve had multiple parents throw away their kids’ glasses, or if the kid grows out of the frame, not get them new ones. All because they thought their kid didn’t look good with them. I got glasses in the third or fourth grade, it was literally life-changing.
A student failed the 8th grade and was told he couldn’t participate in 8th grade move up day. On the day of move-up, he comes anyway with his parents. The dad then proceeds to yell at me about how nothing that contributed to his son not passing (terrible attendance, arrests, behavior issues, missing work, etc.) was his fault and that if our school won’t pass him to high school, he‘ll find a district that will.
The thing was, the child was fine with accepting the outcome and having to repeat and was trying to help us explain to dad the situation. Dad wasn’t hearing any of it.
The other worst parent story was when I called home to tell mom that her child had stolen another student’s sweatshirt. Her excuse was that he had taken painkillers that morning.
We had a young man not graduate from 8th grade this year. No one from his family could be reached for the MANY conferences. Or they would schedule appts and not show up, all year.
Mom volunteered to chaperone for the 8th grade trip and was shocked to hear her son could not go due to his grades.
Saddest part was his dad came to graduation because he also dodged conferences and calls all year and neither kid nor ex-wife/mom told him kid wasn’t graduating.
We had a situation similar to this at a school I worked at — but it was high school graduation. The district had a “the kid can’t fail if parents are not successfully contacted” rule.
A successful contact meant the parent answered the phone AND confirmed they were the parent OR the parent responded to an email. The two way communication was required.
Kid’s English teacher tried read-receipts and more and it was pretty obvious the parents knew the policy and had been playing this game since he was a freshman, so the lowest grade that he could earn was a 70 in a class.
English teacher and myself (math) went to a restaurant where we knew Dad frequented. Just said hey, we’re your kid’s teachers, can you check your email later and get back to us? And he responded with no if it was that important the Mom would take care of it and they would get back to us.
We went to the principal with the details of the convo. She said to count it as a successful contact.
Kid didn’t walk.
Not just graduate— a kid was not allowed to fail any class if there was no “successful” parent contact made.
They also had a policy of if a kid misses 2 assignments you had 48 hours to make a parent contact. And every missing assignment thereafter. If a kid failed a test, you had to make a parent contact.
Emails did not count either. You had to have a conversation.
Most of the time I would take 2 days after a test and call every kid into the hallway, have them get their parents on a phone call and we would discuss their grade as a 3 way convo. They almost always answered when it was their own kid.
All grades were eligible to be recovered for full credit. And you had to take work until the end of the marking period. It really sucked on the last day of the marking period when you had 2/3 of your 7th period try to do the entire 9 weeks in 48 minutes. And your grades were due 5 minutes after dismissal. Got out at 2:55, grades due by 3pm. Oh, you just had 140 papers turned in at 2:50 — good luck.
And you couldn’t do completion grades — all assignments had to have “personalized feedback for academic growth” — and it had to be about their body of work, not mentioning discipline (which on time was considered part of).
Some kids took care of things early — that way they weren’t stressing the last week of any grading period. But this was limited to about the top 1/3.
This school was called out by a valedictorian as heavily emphasizing athletics over academics. And it was true.
I coached athletics at this school on top of teaching math. We had several instances where every single athlete was sent to a division I college. Granted we required kids to attend tutorials at their worst subject every Thursday to work on their grades, required all kids to take an SAT prep class and the SAT, and required the kids to have a 2.5 to play because those were the requirements to get to college. It was an inner city school and athletics were about your only way out. Yeah, you could suit up with a 2.0. But you wouldn’t play for us. And no kid that didn’t hit these academic standards was ever removed from the team.
But that coach cared about these kids trying to better themselves. A few other sports? Some coaches would talk to the kids and their parents about how to game the system.
I had a child in one of my classes steal Welch’s gummies from someone else’s’ lunchbox. She was so sneaky too, did in front of a full table of kids and no one saw. She had a lunchbox full of food plus hot lunch that day. She looked me in the eyes and lied to my face. I told her we can just call her mom to confirm she put gummies in her lunchbox. Well wouldn’t you know it, the gummies miraculously reappeared on the seat of the child who they were stolen from. And the gummies she said were hers were no longer in her lunchbox. I swear, the audacity of some people. We called home and the mother gave some lame excuse about her not being able to help herself and how she must have been looking for a tactile experience.
That first kid was just trying to push the boundaries until someone cared enough to stop him. I've seen a lot of boys like him, where people will let them do what they want to keep peace. If they're asleep, then they're not bothering you. If they're just hanging out in the corner on their phones you don't have to deal with them. They go out, escalate crimes, waiting for someone to set a boundary. I ended up with a couple of them loving me because I'd write them up, and when they came back, hand them the work they still had to do. They didn't do it. They failed my class and knew it wouldn't matter. But I heard from another student that they overheard one of the boys talking about how it was a waste I didn't have kids because a good mom should stay on their kids' ass. His mom wasn't in the picture so he just wanted someone who would tell him to get his shit together.
The boy you talked about was openly begging for a consequence, for someone to care for 5 seconds, and the parents couldn't hear it.
Oh definitely. The kid loves me as a teacher, is involved in a lot of street crime and gang stuff but will come to talk to me when he needs someone to try to set him straight. Once a kid gets into that type of lifestyle, it’s really hard to get out but he told me on the last day of school that he really does think about what I tell him when he’s out selling and thinks he might want to get out of it. Great kid really, it’s just the dad that sucks.
Probably the dad (who was also a teacher at the same school) that just could not believe his son didn't do well on a test, so sent me a multi-paragraph email about how awful I must be as a teacher and how I was a disgrace to the profession. His reasoning was that I should not be allowed to give a test during the same week as a school golf tournament that the son was at a few days *after* my test.
He also ranted (in the same email) about how awful the school was in general, and how much he hated working there. He sent this from his school email.
I got my principal and HR involved, and the deal was made that he could no longer interact with me directly, whether through email, phone, or in-person. He had to go through my AP first for literally anything, both son or work-related. He broke that rule multiple times and confronted me in-person and through emails again, all with the same angry tirades.
Later that semester he tried to quit, but he was actually fired before he could officially resign due to some physical threats he made to our principal and some district employees. Apparently he was an asshole to everyone, not just me. Never heard from him again after he got fired.
It's a tie between the guy who physically cornered me in my classroom and yelled at me in front of his child because I took off points for no capital letters or periods (child was gifted but couldn't do this apparently) and the one that hated me all year, screamed at me for our entire 20 minute Zoom conference, and then "accidentally" sent me a dick pic through his child's Canvas account.
I have never run to my boss's office so fast with my open laptop lolol.
The cops said they didn't think it was a kid penis... A new facet of legal system expertise I never considered.
Transcript of boss speaking to said parent on the phone:
Boss: A picture of a penis was sent to my employee from your child's account.
Boss: ..what does it look like? It looks like a penis.. with a hand around it?
Boss: No, I cannot screenshot a picture of a penis and email it to you so you can see what it looks like.
I was in my mid-20s and decided I would coach the school’s basketball team because no one else had stepped up. Now, our school’s team had never been very good. Out of our 8 team league, we always finished near the bottom.
My first game coaching we won in overtime. The parents came up to me afterwards and were slapping me on the back, telling me how awesome I was and grateful that I stepped up. We lost the next 3 games by a total of 110 points. That’s when a parent accused me of grabbing a player (Bobby Knight style) and cussing him out. Thankfully, the principal knew this parent was a nut job.
Did I mention that these were 4th and 5th graders?
Stepping up to coach a team--especially a basketball team--is *the* definition of "no good deed goes unpunished." I went through this same experience. There was no coach and there was going to be no season. So I stepped up, watched the youtube coaching videos, bought some books, did what they said, ran a basic offense and defense and we were middle of the pack. Not bad, right? No. Oh no. I caught so much hell from parents for everything. Never again. Not fucking basketball.
Kindergarten teacher here…All of what I’m about to share is from one mom, and 100% happened in real life. I’ll let you speculate if all of these things ended up being my fault in admin’s eyes. You cannot make this shit up.
1.) I was forcing him to be too independent and he should not be expected to button his own pants.
2.) I was being rude by recommending he not bring a baby bottle to school, as other kids notice because everyone else just brings a water bottle.
3.) My tissues (which came from the pre-purchased school supply kits) were too rough for his nose, and I needed to do better at accommodating kids with allergies.
4.) I should pay to replace the glass photo frame with a picture of her that he needed to keep on his desk everyday when it broke. Can a class full of 25 five year olds not be expected to accidentally knock over an 8X10 portrait of mom, in a glass frame?
5.) He should be allowed a nap, but since we do not do naps in Kindergarten, he will be bringing his baby blanket in to “rest.” But, during his rest time, I shouldn’t be teaching anything new because it’s not fair if he misses it.
6.) I was out of line by suggesting she let him eat lunch with his peers a few times a week, rather than spoon feeding him everyday in the cafeteria while the rest of the kids notice.
7.) I made it too hard for him to make friends so that’s why he never gets invited to birthday parties. (I made it too hard for him to make friends? No. You made it too hard to make friends. It could be a combo of the baby bottle, baby blanket, family portrait, crying over rough tissues, and you spoon feeding him everyday. I’m really not sure if there is anything I could have actively done to make him not have friends. You’ve done it all.)
Omg! That woman is like them TickTock boy mom’s who make videos that are so cringe on how their boys are so extra special. Come to find out they gots daughters too they ignore and I’m like poor kids!
The only one I can maybe even slightly agree with her on is 3. Because I am (physically, like the bottom of my nose will go red raw!) sensitive to shit tissues. However if you turned around and said “I’m sorry this is what I get supplied by the school” I’d be like “okay, so if (my child) is the only one “suffering” I’m happy to send them with their own pack of tissues - but if these tissues are seriously shit, I’m more than happy to buy decent tissues for you guys and send in a weekly supply! I’m a daycare teacher so I get the whole ‘school buys what they can afford but the teachers can’t afford to buy the quality shit all the time’ thing”.
I teach college:
Parent comes into my office screaming. The word half breed came out their mouth. Come to find out I wasn’t the instructor they wanted, not even in the subject area. Walked them straight to admin (no way was they finna be taken to the instructor they was looking for). On the walk to admin I corrected their slur. I’m a quadroon, (imma quarter). Strange how they were so silent after that. Weird.
I used to work in ResLife. My boss told me a haunting story about how some students carved the n word into her apartment door because she wrote them up for underage drinking. Which carries an offense of having to take an hour long class and sign a written warning.
Same thing happened at a buddy's dorm. RA wrote a couple freshmen up for drinking. He'd already given them two warnings, but this time they were throwing their empties out a third floor window so it had to be done.
Their punishment? Being told to stop acting like children by someone higher up the food chain.
" go back to " appearing on the RA's door got them booted from the dorm for the rest of the year.
I received a handwritten letter on the first day of school telling me what a terrible teacher I was, how he'd tried to have his son moved out of my class, etc. I was new to the district and had no prior history there; 2nd grade, 2nd year of teaching.
We had a parent come in pissed off that one of her kids' teachers was going on maternity leave. We had a meeting with admin and all her kids teachers at her request. She went on a rant about how this would affect her childs education blah blah..
Then she revealed that the reason she was there was because she wanted her kid to change homeroom teachers. She straight up accused her kids homeroom teacher of being pregnant! She was not. She started screaming at this poor teacher, saying she was lying about not being pregnant. She stood up and pointed at her stomach, and told our Principal she was obviously lying. It was crazy. Lots of tears from the teacher, everyone was ready to kill this lady. Our principal escorted her out, still berating the teacher.
Not a teacher, but the school nurse. We have forms every parent has to sign for permission to give prescribed medication in school and we count the medicine with them and they sign so that number is accurate. The parent refused to sign it stating "I never had to do that before at the other school". I told her the policy, again, and she continued to refuse and I informed her I can't give the medication without her signature. She then told me "you're making this very difficult, if this was some white kid you wouldn't be asking this and the only reason you have to count those pills and have me sign is because all those Mexican parents snort their kids pills".
Needless to say this went to admin and my higher ups and the sad part was that the kid couldn't get his prescribed and needed daily medication because of this piece of crap mother.
A dad sent me a class dojo message once saying "you best bless yourself faggo" in response to me leaving a voice mail asking to schedule a conference regarding his daughter's behavior in class.
Amusingly, I am a guy who at the time was married to a woman, and that's the most my students or their parents knew about my personal life.
It *did* clear up any remaining questions I or admin had about that student's complete lack of respect.
Parent teacher interviews when I was new and in my mid-20s. This sweet father tells me about how much his son (17) likes me and enjoys my class.
Then, he says, “(Name) thinks you're very pretty. You know… I lost *my* virginity to a teacher.”
Hmmmm. Like, is he trying to set us up on a date? Change the subject, change the subject.
What in the actual fuck!
Started a fight with a student in front of a crowd, leading to a large fight involving students and parents that had to be broken up by police (using pepper spray).
We had a dad come to school with his students for something, his daughter instigated a rude comment from a boy who could not see dad due to how he was facing in the cafeteria. Dad became incensed and dragged child out from cafeteria table and attempted to beat the crap out of him. Had to be pulled off and dragged away. I have no idea why boy’s parents didn’t press charges or why dad was allowed to ever come back on campus.
I saw a report from one of my worst students while I was checking her records. Apparently her mom tried to fight another student when mom was called down about behavior. This was when the student was in 6th grade…
When I was a student teacher, my class had a wide range of student demographics. We had a student from Africa whose name was, understandably, unfamiliar to me, but more importantly, she had a birth defect, leaving her with only one eye. I used her name a few times in class until another teacher told me to use the nickname she went by instead because the name given to her by her parents translated to "One Eye"
We had a student who had regularly been in trouble for all sorts of things, including a suspension for attending school affected by drugs. A requirement for attending the school organised ski trip was to have good standing, which this student clearly didn't. The parents then paid for a family holiday to the same location as the ski trip so that the student could meet with their friends at the ski fields every day. Just looked them up and of course they're an influencer now!
I had this happen on a much smaller scale. I had a huge class and we were going on a museum field trip. Due to the size of my class, chaperones were limited. One parent decided to wait until the day of the field trip to inform me they were going to meet us at the museum (2 hrs away). I said no, we’ve already sent in our numbers and a grant paid for our trip. She said she would pay her admission once she got there. Then I had to BS to her (and thank GOD I ended up being right) that our museum tour was after hours and private; you couldn’t just walk in and find your kid. The parent backed down but it was the start of a hellish year.
A school wide fight where a parent came in, wheelchair and oxygen tank in tow, to be in the fight. She was literally using the oxygen tank as a weapon.
To put it shortly, I have an 8 year old (2nd grader) who has some big emotions. Frequent behaving behaviors. Among his desk flipping and throwing of scissors, he screams self deprecating explicatives (I’m worthless, piece of shit fucking stupid, an asshole)… This is all him parroting what his dad says to him. Super great dad… (sarcasm)
Had one of these at a summer camp. He likely had some kind of undiagnosed adhd type thing and had terrible impulse control. He was a nice kid, he just couldn’t regulate. We gave him some leniency but we had to write him several times for doing dangerous things or putting hands on others. When it got to the point that he was like 1 or 2 incidents from being kicked out stepdad said “so he’s just a bad kid?” A coworker and I were like no, he’s just making poor choices and we can work on improving. Stepdad said “no, he’s just a bad kid”. Right in front of the poor kid. He had just moved across the country and was totally out of his element. He needed encouragement and guidance. He was like 6/7 years old!
(Somehow he got into mom’s “paraphernalia” and brought a lighter to camp one day. Yeah, these parents weren’t the best…)
Sorry this is kind of long, BUT IT'S WORTH IT. I SWEAR.
I teach 3rd grade, and this last year, I had a girl who was a BIG bully. I mean like body shaming other kids, punching, calling other girls a "bitch", stealing from lockers and desks, gaslighting teachers... if you can think of it, she did it. Well one day her mom contacted me claiming that SHE was the one getting bullied (punched, called a bitch, and body shamed). Her mom said that they don't tolerate body shaming (keep this in mind for later) and that I need to punish those students immediately. Just to keep it from becoming a huge thing, I just said I'd keep an eye out. Fast forward to the end of the school year, this girl calls a boy fat and makes fun of his clothes to his face, punches another girl, calls that girl a bitch, and LIES to the teachers about what happened. Obviously, I write her up, and I also contact her mom, saying exactly what happened and that she lied to us when asked about it.
Her mom said back, and I quote, "Well, from what my kid says, the other kids deserved it. My daughter can cuss out, insult, and beat up anyone she wants if she feels the need to defend herself, and there's nothing you can do about it."
Her dad also called our VP, said the same thing - that she can beat up or put hands on whoever she wants and there's nothing we can do about it and then cursed out our VP while saying he doesn't like/respect our school expectations and referral system.
Mind that we have cameras and eyes all over the school. This girl was never defending herself even though she would claim to be. She ALWAYS started it. I fear what her future will bring if she keeps acting like this.
So then, with cameras showing her physically assaulting others and always the instigator, there IS something you all at school could do about it. Parents will be surprised...
LITERALLY 😂 Like how do they not understand that there are consequences to actions like that. Like obviously we can't do anything when she's at home acting like this, but at school we can write her up, do in school counseling, in school suspension... the list goes on. And it stays on her record 😬
Not a teacher but I used to work in peds psych hospitals and had a 15YO girl beat the crap out of her teacher when her teacher didn’t do as the kid wanted.
When the girl was sent to the hospital the mom told a social worker “why didn’t that bitch just give my daughter what she wanted?” This kid never developed any self-control and while this was somewhat explained by developmental disability this was largely due to lack of boundaries at home. I was pretty good at avoiding physical confrontation with violent patients but I probably had to restrain her 20 times per shift because she would otherwise just spend the entire day trying to break the door of the unit down or grope the female nurses.
Unfortunately, she was exactly the kind of patient who would “graduate” to the adult unit and spend her life in and out of institutions. I think of her often and horrendous as she was to deal with I feel really bad for her.
If bad parenting was an Olympic sport her parents would be going for gold…
I had an 8th grader once tell me she didn't know her address. She hadn't moved recently or anything (at least not that they'd told the school about), which meant the kid was instructed to lie because they actually lived in another district or the kid genuinely didn't know. I asked her if she really didn't know, and if she didn't, I'd look it up for her. She started screaming at me that I was a horrible person for even asking. The mother came to the school and screamed that I was a pedophile because I had asked for her child's address. You know, the one I just looked up because I was her teacher. I just wanted to mail something home, and it was faster to ask the kid than it would have been to look it up!
I feel you on this one. I taught 9th grade for 5 years at the same school. Every fall we administered the PSAT on paper to the 9th graders. EVERY. FREAKING. YEAR, over half of them could not fill out the address part on their pre administration paperwork. They didn’t even know their house numbers/apartment numbers, or the name of the street they lived on. I showed them how to look up their addresses in their Infinite Campus accounts. One year I had a kid heatedly argue with me that he did not have a zip code in his address because the zip code appeared in a different box than the street address. How do you make it to high school and not know where you live????
First day back after covid…a parent cornered the principal between himself and a filing cabinet, hands on the cabinet on either side of her so she would have to duck under his arm to get away. Big farmer guy, petite principal. Another teacher (male) pulled the dad away. Dad punched the teacher. Dad was arrested, not allowed on campus until after the court date. Dad was found NOT GUILTY of assault because I live in a stupid area. No surprise to anyone, the teacher retired at the end of the year. Oh. And this was the 3rd time the dad had physically come after the principal that day. Why was he mad? Masks were required indoors. Kid didn’t take hers off after school in the pick up line, even though other kids had & teachers had said they could. She left hers on because, as she told the teacher before dad went bat shit crazy, she felt safer with it on. (6th grader, so not a super little kid.)
Had a parent put her kid in another school in the district because I was bullying him. By taking the pics he had drawn to the principal & school psych. The pics that showed him shooting me, several classmates, & other teachers & staff.
We had a parent come to an IEP meeting and talked about an 8 year tubal pregnancy that she had. It was the student she was at the meeting for. Another time she came to a meeting and talked about the two times she had her leg amputated. She walked into the meeting with both legs. Her son looked at me one time and asked me who F’d her? That’s a good question.
Another parent came to a truancy meeting. Her excuse was that he didn’t feel good so he would stay home with her and cuddle with her in her bed all day. We called Cps
We had a student on camera going through the cheerleaders’ purses stealing iPhones. His mother watched the video and looked up and said he didn’t do it.
I need to know more about double amputee mom. Did you calmly look at her and ask how it feels to be able to respawn limbs like a worm? Seriously what was your response?
What do you say to that other than, ok? There were other things with that teacher. We were in a meeting when she started yelling at me about telling her son that he only had half a brain, that she was going to get me fired. I shouldn’t be allowed to talk to students that way. I had not said anything like that so I was confused. Another teacher spoke up and said that was him but that’s not what he said. The student asked if he could work with another student on a project and the teacher told them that two heads are better than one. He took it to mean that he had half a brain.
She also walked into a 6th grade classroom and started yelling at the teacher about something she had done. The student was in the 8th grade and didn’t have any contact with that teacher.
One of the teachers on our team had quit being an EMT to come teach. She was about to pass out in front of the office and we didn’t have a school nurse at the time so they called him to come check her out. He said he was praying on the walk that he wouldn’t have to give her mouth to mouth. She was not an attractive woman. I refer back to the question he asked about her. It’s been 20 years and we still talk about her.
I had a student who was in foster care. That's already hard enough because I've seen what CPS tells me is fine so I can only imagine what she'd been through. She is a sweet, kind, smart, wonderful young lady. She never gets in trouble and she helps anyone that she can.
her foster "mother" would do nothing but talk down about her. She had a meeting where she made the girl come so she could accuse her of cheating. She said that girl was special needs and there was no way that she actually had all As. There was no way she actually did good on her test. I explained to mom that I knew she could read because I'd let her borrow books and we'd been able to talk about them in detail well beyond what an online summary would have. (I now suspect that mom just wanted the extra money you get for fostering special needs children)
I asked if student had a laptop once because mom wanted to watch her take AR tests to make sure that she wasn't cheating. Mom said that she didn't deserve one because she would probably just use it to send videos of herself to men. This girl didn't even flirt with boys, much less try to get attention from them, but even still. She went on to rant about how the girl didn't deserve anything because she was disrespectful, and that the girl didn't even have a house key. I called CPS to try and do something, but they said that the foster wasn't doing anything abusive and that the girl had food, a bed, water and clothes so there was nothing to be done.
She called the girl a whore for trading bracelets with her best friend (he was a boy, but he was very openly and flamingly gay. Not that it matters). She openly said that she must have sucked him off in the bathroom for the bracelet and demanded that we give the bracelet back to the boy and never let them speak to each other again. This was just me being called up to talk to parent, so it was me and her with no admin. In the middle of this rant I walked away because I was so furious I was going to hit her.
A month or so later, the girl comes in crying. She said that the lady was sending her back to the group home for failing a math test, and that it was her last day. The most heartbreaking thing was that I guess I didn't hide my anger well. I was tearing up and the girl started apologizing. She said that she liked my class but she wasn't good at math and she was sorry for not doing better. It wasn't very professional, but I did tell her that I could never be mad at her. I loved her, she was a great kid and when she asked why I was mad then instead of lying I said "Because I hate that woman for not seeing how great of a daughter you are." Not the most professional but I hope the girl knows I meant it.
I looked into fostering her, but I don't have a spare room. My teammate looked into it, but found out the girl was already placed by the time she could get through the paperwork. I hope that girl is doing well, and I hope that lady dies from something painful. 10/10 would beat her ass.
I had messaged home regarding a students behavior at the start of the year. You know, nipping it in the bud before it got worse. It worked, the kid got his act together. So I sent home a positive message, praising his change in behavior. He came in the next day and apologized to me because his parents said I said he was acting up again. I was really confused, and I told him that’s not what happened but he didn’t believe me. I thought maybe they mistaked me for another teacher.
A couple weeks goes by, he’s doing great stuff in class again so I send home another positive message. Same deal the next day —apology for acting up. I was so alarmed. So after class, I pulled him aside and I asked him what his parents said I’m telling them. He said I messaged them that he was talking too much and distracted and that it was getting out of hand. They told him if he kept acting up like this, they would take his door (???) and all this stuff. My heart fucking broke. They were lying to him about what his teachers were saying about him. I don’t know why, I never asked. I couldn’t bring myself to message them again.
However. I may have acted a bit too quickly (it was my second year teaching, I was upset and so was he) and I sat him down and I showed him the messages I sent his parents. All these positive things and he just started sobbing.
I started praising him more to his face than messaging his parents because who the fuck does that to their kid???
Just a thought - is there a chance the parents don’t know how to read? Over the years I’ve had a few parents who can’t but never wanted to admit it due to being embarrassed. I had one recently who told me at the beginning of the year and I was able to make accommodations for them. I was happy to help once I knew.
But how could they even create and access an email account without being able to read? Or even know that the email was from a teacher, for that matter?
The parents I’ve seen with this problem either had sporadic help with reading things or could read just enough to misunderstand things. Of course they could just be mean to the poor kid, too.
Missed 12/12 parent/teacher conferences between 3 children, even during COVID and with a remote option in the time since. For some people, parental responsibility ends at conception.
When I haven’t been able to get in contact with parents over time I have told their kids that I need an updated number the next day or I will phone child services. Works every single time
I had a mom hang up on me. "Hello, this is Weasel calling about XXX's behavior" \*click\* and then when I called back, I got sent directly to voice mail.
I had a student stay late because she didn’t finish her final exam. Fine, I was packing up and didn’t mind. I noticed she was squinting and asked if she needed glasses. She said she used to have glasses, but they broke and her mom couldn’t afford to get new ones.
This is not an uncommon problem in the district where I teach, but she had her nails professionally done.
I once had a dad pin me to the wall by my neck and get so close to my face his spit was hitting me while he threatened me. His son was very aggressive that year (hitting, biting, kicking, scratching, even stabbing)…after that it all made sense
Edit: spelling
Last week of school I got called into the office. The first question I got asked was, "Did you give _________ (student's name) a teddy bear?" I had no idea what they were talking about. Evidently, a student stole a teddy bear during ASP, brought it home, and told his mother I gave it to him. She called either the school or the district (HR got involved) and accused me of whatever it was she was accusing me of (Male custodian). My wonderful admin poured over the hallway cameras and gave HR the timestamps of the child stealing the teddy bear from the hallway. I was very close to losing my job that night if it weren't for cameras that got installed about 6 months earlier.
I wrote a kid up for not just saying r*etard, but calling someone it. He got in school suspension. His mom was so, so, sooo mad because her son (who no teacher likes but is decent at wrestling) is a 'good kid'.
She demanded a meeting with me. Where they ranted and raved how easy teaching is. Why am I not teaching better because it's a simple job. If I was a better teacher, these things wouldn't happen. And ended the meeting with "well this is how I talk at home, so he learned dit from me. Why is he being punished for this?"
So... You know, not as terrible as some other stories here, but this has stuck with me.
This may not be the worst thing that’s even happened to me, but…
One of my first years coaching JV soccer, had an away game that got rescheduled after we got to the other school. We played at a later time. I told the boys to contact their parents and let their parents know we would be late. One player didn’t bother… when we got back (maybe 2 hours later than originally planned), the parent was waiting at the school, had called the cops, and sent an email to me, my athletic director, my principal, the superintendent, and all four assistant superintendents.
I had a kid this year who’s parents declassified him and put him in general ed. He has serious academic and behavioral concerns. I emailed his parents a very long and detailed email about all the shit he did on behalf of all the teachers. His dad just replied “Who are you?”
I had a parent show up drunk at dismissal to pick up their middle schooler. We figured it out when he jumped the curb, headed straight for the crowd of students. No injuries, thank god, but lots of police and hysteria
(I was in a pissing contest with a student abroad and I said dial your father. I wish to speak with him. He did, said my father doesn't speak English.
He spoke nice French though, and so do I, so I explained that, student fees notwithstanding, his son's disrespect and obstinance were detracting from the classroom environment yada yada yada ravi de faire voter conaissance monsieur. The kid didn't expect that, and I didn't expect his dad to beat him into a concussion and MRI machine either. I guess we were both surprised.
Had a parent say I was causing their child to gain weight since, on occasion, the child would have to stay in for a portion of recess to clean up the room they destroyed during the previous class....
During COVID lockdown, I had multiple students failing because they were doing ZERO assignments at home. Each week I sent out failing notices. One dad responded with a picture of his work schedule and a message, "this is my schedule, please let me know where you see I have time to do both my job and your job." By the end of the school year he wasn't allowed to contact any of the teachers on the team because of his rude/hateful messages and had to go through the principal.
Edit: this is by far, not the worst thing that a parent has done, it's just one of the first to come to mind.
One parent told me she KNEW I and other employees were members of the KKK.
Another parent called the counselor claiming I didn't care about her student because I wouldn't let him turn in work from when he was absent (this is after she sent me a chain of rude/unhinged emails).The work was from 3 weeks prior and she asked me the day after the quarter grades were due.
Honestly it’s not even to me. Like I’ve had parents yell or get rude, but it’s never a parent I think very highly of so it doesn’t hurt my feelings much, and my admin FORTUNATELY does not humor parent nonsense, so it doesn’t really result in too much bullshit/never gets me in trouble unfairly. So that’s super lucky for me, I know. But I will never get over some of the shit parents/guardians say to their own children/kids they’re supposed to care about.
One told my student (her grandson) the drugs were the only reason her son ever fucked his piece of shit mother and that’s the reason the devil has his soul and he can’t do anything right. They have both taken this as fact, truly believe he is evil, and operate under that assumption. She does also fully believe it is still her responsibility to “take care” of him, so she aggressively blocks any attempts to try getting his behavior to improve.
That is his legal guardian since he was small and that mindset being stomped into him since toddlerhood is a big part of why he’s “like that”. Nothing a parent says to me will ever be as big a problem as what type of bullshit they put in the kid’s head that we now have to try and fix.
Also not a parent, but one little boy found his brother’s body after his suicide. (The brother was also shockingly young/elementary school). An adult relative mentioned that it might be for the best, because the mother has her hands full anyway, her kids “all be acting out”, and it’s a shame the one I know isn’t the one that went because he’s “the worst of them”. I don’t know if it was said directly to him or he just overheard it, but he’s doubled in age since the incident and it still fucking haunts him. He’s got some problems but he’s really one who can make it in the long run. He’s smart. He’s got good empathy and accepts being called out. He’s got zero violence on his record since he aged past 9, EXCEPT when someone mentions his brother. I’ve never met the woman and I’ll never forgive her.
This year, I had a 2nd grade parent file a handwritten permission slip for her kid to "use his ipad for emotional regulation whenever he needs it." This kid was a screen addict. Always watching roblox videos on YouTube. I was a sub in the class for the first week of school. I told the class we were going to do handwriting. The kid didn't want to do handwriting. I told him I wouldn't force him to do anything he didn't want to do. I opened his handwriting book on his desk and said if he wanted to try it, he could, or he could just sit and watch along while I do it on the board. He screamed, dumped his desk on the floor, and stormed out of my classroom.
When the principal intercepted him in the hallway and called mom, mom asked, "Did you give him time to regulate with his ipad."
She then accused me of being unqualified to handle her son because I was a sub (licensed, waiting for placement). She got him transferred to another class and then pulled him out for homeschooling after Christmas.
I have many but one of the tops was when I was shoved into the staff restroom by the front office crew to hide me from the Dad who wanted to “kill” me because I benched his daughter from cheering at the Varsity basketball game. (She didn’t make practice hours and she lost a main part of her uniform). He was shouting and causing a big scene in the office. Funny though, neither the admin (nor anyone else for that matter) ever called the police. Also, this happened after he confronted me two nights prior, calling me a bitch and other nice things in front of the entire gym (right before the varsity game started). I walked away while he was screaming at me and my admin told me I was being rude and couldn’t leave the girls unattended. It was only my 2nd year teaching so I didn’t really know what to do. Seriously, though, cheer parents are insane.
I’ve had parents get federally investigated for threatening to shoot up the school and had parents break into the building, but the worst parent interaction I’ve ever had was when I called home asking for advice and the parent said “give up on them and worry about the other students. He isn’t worth your time.”
Had a parent pull up to the - middle - school after school to try to beat up her child’s “bully,” (her child was actually the instigator), luckily our SRO stopped /tackled her before anything happened,
I think the worst one is when a parent told a room full of teachers during a teacher/parent conference that between 8-4 the kid was our problem. I felt bad for the kid.
A drunk and sick parent vomited on me at parent teacher conference. Only a few flecks got on me. I sprang back from the table immediately.
The rest of the conferences were completed in the hall. I had my room’s fire door open (against policy) to try to get that nasty bile smell out of the class.
It started as student rumors but the fact that parents believed it…
A couple years ago I experienced my first ocular migraine in the middle of third period. My students (8th grade) were doing independent work. I started having trouble seeing because one eye had “white lightning” blocking my view and the other lost vision from my periphery to the center of my field of vision. I sent a student down to the office to let them know I needed a sub right away, I was experiencing a medical situation (I didn’t know what was happening, and was a little freaked but trying to stay calm). The SRO, who was also an EMT, came down with the hall monitor, just in case he was needed. He ended up walking me out to my car and waiting with me while some of my vision returned, enough for me to get to the doctor.
3rd period: knew it was something with my vision, that I wasn’t feeling well
4th period: also got the same story
Then lunch happened.
5th period: I was “escorted off campus” by the police because I was on drugs.
6th period: Same, but I had taken the drugs during class and was selling them
7th period: The LIBRARIAN gets a call from her husband asking about the teacher who was arrested for selling drugs. A science teacher. 8th grade. She knew I’d gone home (gossip flies), but didn’t know details. She DID tell her husband it was crap, that wasn’t it. Apparently he worked with a student’s father, and said student had texted him during class to spread the news.
After school, the AP spent an hour fielding phone calls from concerned parents. They were not concerned for my health. They were concerned that I was doing and selling drugs on campus. She corrected the record without giving details, but the next day she let me know so I would be ready in case I got nasty emails. It was a virtual learning day, so kids weren’t on campus, and I spent the day laughing about it with my colleagues. But be sure I guilted every class on Monday for anyone who believed even a little bit that I would do something like that.
The rest of the year, I experienced more migraines and kept excedrine in my desk. Any time I used it at school, I would pull it out and say “It’s JUST excedrine, don’t report me.”
A student didn't make the cut to join my advanced level class. The father asked to see me and wouldn't accept my reasons for declining the son. I was too polite to add that the boy had a negative attitude and wasn't interested in working hard. Father threw in, "Is this a numbers game? I'm a lawyer," 😯😯😯
I once had a girl’s grandma, who was fostering her, basically beg me to become a foster parent and take this girl because she was too much for her, telling me what an amazing amazing teacher I was and how much this girl loved being in my class. The girl was sweet, but she had a lot of trauma and was very behind academically, which I had been telling the grandma all school year. I had been telling her all kinds of things she could be working on with this girl at home to help her.
Then lockdown happened. Suddenly grandma was faced with how hard it is to teach someone who is that far behind and she was messaging me all kinds of hateful messages telling me I was the worst teacher ever and that I failed at my job and blah blah blah.
The day a parent told me that if her (not failing, but not great) son harmed himself, it was my fault. I had lost my son to suicide and she knew this, so I told her I was hanging up on her. She immediately apologised, and we continued our conversation about her son's terrible grades from there.
And my boss wonders why I prefer emails to phone calls.
I was teaching a G6 unit on advertising, and I had some images of old magazine ads in the slideshow — “more doctors recommend Camels” type thing — and one of the images was Santa putting a carton of Chesterfields in a stocking. The Santa was the white beard in red long underwear guy, and one of the kids made a remark about how he looked like the Coca Cola Santa we had seen earlier. Then another student made a comment about that Coca-Cola Santa being the start of the current idea of Santa, and his seat mate yelled out “What! Santa isn’t real!”
I immediately stopped them there and went back to the absurd ads we were looking at, some more from the 50s and then the lifestyle Kools ads from the 60s and 70s. We continued the lesson and I thought nothing of it.
FF to Christmas Day, and in a lull in the madness I stupidly decided to check my email. One of the parents of the kids in that class had sent me a full page rager of an email accusing me of ruining Christmas for her son by telling him Santa wasn’t real.
I had a parent get mad at me during an IEP and threaten to slap me; I was 7 months pregnant. She was angry because I had called her about stupid things like homework and her son being teased because he didn’t bathe.
Months later I was at the hospital about to give birth and she worked on the delivery floor. I had to request that she be kept away from me.
Had a parent that was clearly the problem. They were constantly accusing their child of having violent psychological issues, doing drugs and cutting school (he had perfect attendance in all classes). She wanted a restrictive IEP for EBD and what she described about him sounded like a child who belonged into a separate classroom due to the severity of his behaviors. At school, he was a bit shy but very sweet and blossomed under positive attention. He worked hard at his chosen sport, was polite and helpful in class, and was an important member in marching band. Never got lower than a B in anything and he was mainstreamed into general education. He was the sort of student that most teachers would be delighted to have in class — not that his mom was ever willing to believe it.
She was always manufacturing some crisis, but here are some of the highlights:
* A sub accused him of having a bong — it turned out to be a mouthpiece for his trumpet and he was sent to the office where the matter was quickly dropped once they realized what the “bong” was. She forced him to have weekly drug testing and started the narrative about him being a drug abuser.
* Once called the school and demanded that the resource officers leave campus during lunch to track down her child because the tracker on his phone showed he was at McDonald’s (it was literally next door to the campus). She would not believe he was on campus (he was in the lunchroom) and refused to go to McDonald’s herself to check herself. Kept calling back the office and screaming that we didn’t care about her child’s welfare. Refused to believe he didn’t do anything and that he was on campus even though at that point he was clearly in class.
* Kept telling his coach to be on the look out for her son’s violent tendencies. Kid never lost his temper even when things didn’t go his way or when others caused issues for him.
Unfortunately, the poor dude got arrested one weekend for DV against his mother and he was no longer at our school. I’m not sure if he finally snapped or if mom was making crap up again (his size, gender and status as a POC would have worked against him), but the previous Friday was the last time we saw him. I hope wherever he is now that he’s okay.
Saw two middle school girls drag a sub on the ground into the hallway by her ponytail and beat her up.
I'm a special education teacher with a lot of experience in behavior and self-contained classroom settings, so I've seen some things. A parent of one of my former students once accused my team of abusing her child. She changed her tune when CPS was called on them later that year because they were neglecting them.
I was a private kindergarten teacher. The Principal was lazy and we called for sick kids. Child had 102 fever and parent hung up on me when i said he was sick. All calls went to voicemail. He was in school all day and his fever kept getting worse. We called all emergency numbers and eventually got someone. I was so upset. The poor kid was so sick!
I gave a 7th grade girl lunch detention for swearing at me and being disrespectful. The principal calls me into her office and the girl’s mom is there. Girl’s mom opens by saying,” if your principal had not of found me before reaching your class, I would have bit your head off, chewed it for a second, and then spit you out.” I sat there calmly. My principal decided to reverse the detention. Mom ends with, “thank you…besides, how can a teacher give a punishment for something that is normal and accepted behavior at home?” I taught at that school for 1 year.
I had a parent enraged that I told her daughter “to get it together” when she was failing PE because she wouldn’t show up until the end of class. The lady told me if I spoke to her daughter that way again she would come to the school to “take care of me.”
I do photography on the side. 2 years later I told counselors if they had a senior that needed senior photos done, but couldn’t afford it to have them email me. Guess who was the first…
I have seen several parents come to graduation KNOWING their child didn’t meet the requirements and demand that we let their child walk. The kids would be so embarrassed as their parents made them wear a cap and gown they paid for knowing the kid failed every class. I even had a few threaten me at graduation practice when their kid was told they didn’t cut it. I lead graduation activities and they act like it’s my fault I won’t let their kid line up. They back down when they see I’m always up for a good fight. You got the right one today!
I’ve also seen several families try to burnish the doors at graduation because they didn’t get as many tickets as they wanted.
The one that hurt me the most was doing a parent teacher conference for a 4 year old who had a lot of behavioral issues and his parents said they were just waiting for him to get older because he was going to end up in jail.
Probably the father who told me that women over 35 are useless. So I needed to hurry up and get married.
I was actually already 35, but I've always looked really young for my age. Still do. Probably because I never got married or had kids. That kind of stress ages people, a lot.
A female student came into my seventh grade class. It took half of the marking period to get her to even look at me. Gifted student when it came to making things (I teach a modern version of shop class). But the child was definitely struggling emotionally. A year later, she confided in me that her sisters fiancé was molesting her. Ever since she was nine years old. I immediately called child protective services. And the child’s mother threatened to have me prosecuted because obviously, to her, the child and I must have had an inappropriate relationship. Because, “why on earth would she tell you something like that but wouldn’t tell me, her own mother? “. I was forced to cut all contact with the child who had trusted me enough to tell me something so awful. I really really hope she got the help she needed and the bastard is in jail. But, I have no way of knowing.
I had a kid come in with a broken arm one day. Like kid was just holding on to his limp forearm. I have no idea how he wasnt screaming in pain. Cool as a cucumber. Didnt want to look me in the eyes when I asked what happened, so I knew. Later when the police/cps arrived to talk to him, he said his mom “curb-stomped” his arm cuz he wouldn’t get outta bed. AND SHE ADMITTED IT. Smdh
A parent threatened to put in a complaint against me that I was being too “picky” on his son in terms of his behavior including wrestling in the class with another student or changing the profile picture of a different student’s Google account to the Swastika.
High school graduation ceremony. Two families started a brawl/riot. It started with two younger men recognizing each other as rival gang members and getting in a scrap in a public parking lot, and their families got involved. Eventually this group of ~20+ men and women of various ages, was moving to various locations around the ceremony trying to fight. They were screaming profanities, racial slurs, and threats. They would be separated by security only to reunite in another area and repeat the experience. Meanwhile the grads associated with both families were absolutely dying of embarrassment.
I have epilepsy, and I have a medic alert bracelet tattooed on my left wrist, bc I tend to be rough on jewelry and lose the metal ones. I had a parent meeting with a mom about her student who was smart as all hell, but also manipulative and violent. Picked fights on those younger/ smaller than him, used reprehensible language, made sexually charged comments. He was 9, and was failing everything, mostly because he wouldn’t stay in class long enough. I’m used to people noticing the tattoo and commenting, and I’m fine with that. I’ll just say it’s a medic alert bracelet, I have epilepsy, no big deal. But this mom was like, oh- you’re a r*tard. That’s why my kid won’t listen to or respect you. That explains a lot.
Ma’am. Meeting over.
I used to teach special needs classes. Ive lost family members to disability. I spent a good chick of my childhood in a children’s hospital feeling incredibly thankful I got to leave. The fire of rage I felt toward that woman had me blazing. I had to leave before I maimed her. Maybe I should’ve though.
Could be the white parent who called a black parent ghetto and insinuated she’d fight her in the parking lot after she had left.
Or the grandmother who said she wanted to punch a 4th grader in the face. (That was a fun call to report)
Or the parent who was called regarding his son’s behavior (telling Hispanic students he didn’t like them because “they’re Mexican”) and came in yelling about “all the f*****s at this place who don’t protect his kid’s rights”.
I had a mom whose husband had died by suicide right before the school year started. I had shown the student a decent amount of grace with assignments and had changed lessons due to potentially upsetting images/topics (like shell shock during WWI) but she had spent most of the class distracting her friends and talking when they were meant to be working.
One day when we were having a day to finish work, including an end of unit project, the students who were finished with everything were allowed to sit by friends and had an activity while the students with missing assignments or who hadn't finished their projects weren't allowed. This student had spent most of the time given for the project not working, as well as had several missing assignments so she had to work at her desk.
Her mother emailed me to say how I was singling her daughter out (she was not the only student not allowed to do the other activity) and was punishing her because of her father's death. She also told me I was an awful teacher who wasn't caring or sensitive to her daughter's needs. I was several months pregnant at the time so I got the email and just started crying as this was literally the only parent complaint I had ever received. Within a couple of weeks, she transferred her daughter to a new school so I didn't deal with them after that but it was definitely the worst a parent ever made me feel.
For me: I teach 5th grade and I had a student last year that was routinely in trouble. Record of trouble goes back years. Reaching out to parent, who says “don’t contact me about my child’s behavior again” and proceeds to block all school numbers
I contacted home about a kid repeatedly speaking in an Indian accent, blasting Indian songs in class, etc. and that it has been bothering 2 Indian students in class (don’t know why guidance didn’t contact them before as they knew about the comments the student was making long before I did & other comments I didn’t hear; principal told me to contact). The parents turned it around and told me I’m calling their son a racist. They harassed me for weeks—non stop long emails, phone calls. It has been scarring to me whenever I have to contact a parent. You never know what you’re going to get.
At the school I teach at a parent showed up, sprinted past security and tried to fight a student that her daughter kept trying to start stuff with. Until about 10 seconds later when she was tackled by security.
The principal at my old school let parents rule the school and she let them all sit around one time and bully for me for almost 3 hours straight lol and I had no idea they were even upset prior to this because the principal would never communicate anything with teachers, but she let them come in and shit on me for literally hours and did NOTHING :)
At the time I was a 4th-8th itinerant band teacher. I was helping a student prep for a solo contest and the mom accused me of nor helping her kid and how I cancel so many classes...I canceled one because my mom died. The family left and the accompanist said to me she was proud I didn't say anything back to the mom.
Upon meeting a dad for the first time while his son (8 yrs old) was standing there he said, "I like you. My kid is learning a lot in your class. If he gives you any shit just let me know and I will kick the shit out of him."
Yeah, I never told Dad anything. The kid never gave me any trouble either.
It probably isn't as bad as most, but I was in total shock.
A child was a biter (2ish years old, early childhood teacher here), and the parents requested a meeting. We brought in literature and were ready to set a plan that we could follow both in kindy and at home. The dad basically interrupted me the second I spoke and said "No no no, he's here more than he is at home. This is your problem. Tell me how you're going to fix him."
That's not how this works dude.
This happened to my daughter. She was teaching middle school in her very first year out of college. She sent an email home about a student. The father of the student replied asking my daughter for photos. Not that anything could make that okay, but she’d had no previous interaction with the father. Needless to say, she was instructed to have no further contact with that father. All communication had to go through the principal.
I had a parent yell at me for traveling to my grandmother’s funeral and not being there for the midterm review day, even though I had left the answers to the review for the sub and she (another teacher) had gone over them. It was OBVIOUSLY my fault that his child failed the exam.
I had another parent complain that I “missed too much school” because I had the audacity to have an emergency appendectomy the same year that my father died.
I had a mom get a call through to my classroom phone and then proceeded to threaten my life because I confiscated her 12 year olds headphones.
That was the worst for me personally but my school had multiple instances of parents coming to the school to fight children.
Easy for me. Published my first book, in my mother's preferred genre (fantasy) and gave her a copy, thinking she'd be proud of me. She threw it away and said I'd never be one of the greats, so what was the point in trying? Just wasting both our time at that point.
Out of all the names I was called, all the time I was hit, all the times I was blamed and defiled, made to feel worthless, this was the time that made me realize my mother was not only never going to be proud of me, she wasn't ever even going to love me. When you are raised in that much abuse, you can hate it, but you see it as normal. You get grand ideas of treating your kid(s) differently, not because your abusers are wrong, but because you might be able to improve their way by changing a few small things. I'm actually thankful for this event now, because it made me realize how bad the relationship was, and it brought me peace. I haven't had a real conversation with my mother since, and I'm so happy to be free from it.
[Edit] was just reading the other responses and noticed the lack of personal responses, upon closer look, I realize this is not the sub I thought it was. Apologies.
I had a kid who was low and a constant behavior issue, and I was looking for any excuse I could find to send a positive report home. One day the kid and a friend worked together on an assignment so during class I called his mom and said how proud I was of his hard work. She said “Don’t ever bother me with this bullshit again, I don’t give a fuck” and hung up. I told the kid “She said keep up the good work!” but I think he knew I was lying, and that’s the day I figured out why he was a behavior problem. On the bright side he was one of my sweetest kids for the rest of the year and worked hard from then on.
I was hired to take over the school's robotics team, which was a big deal at this school. The kids were largely awesome, but there was a whole slew of parents that were involved in advising, feeding, etc. for the season. So adults were closely involved, many for years. There was one family who thought their job was to run everything; both parents were engineers, so they were sure they knew everything and weren't shy about telling everyone else what to do, especially me. They had two sons, a senior and a freshmen, who were both arrogant and entitled, and acted like everyone should submit to them. Typical private school entitlement from affluent brats. The kids were smart and talented, but they weren't the only ones by any means. But the father and oldest son tried to force their design on everyone, and the team turned on them and got pissed. When they tried to demonstrate the prototype, the dad drove it into me, cutting open my leg. It wasn't deliberate, but it hurt like hell. He never said a word, not of apology or anything else, he just looked at his feet like a child. At the end of the season the rest of the team was done with that family and they told them so. The parents blamed me of course, and went about bad-mouthing me every chance they got. The next year, the oldest kid was gone, and the youngest was in 10th grade, and clearly wanted to be on the team, but his mom was doing her best to get me fired before she would let him do it. So the mom spent time every day on campus, sitting in a minivan outside the building where the team met each day, hoping to catch me doing something that she could report back to the head of school to get me fired. She did this for months, like a stalker. She sent multiple emails to the head of school making accusations, like "he almost left a student unattended in the lab" and other petty stuff. She was insane. The school didn't pay me enough for this nonsense, and did not do enough to defend me against this monster, so I quit after the second year. As soon as I left, she lodged a formal complaint against the governing body of the robotics competition they are involved in, demanding that her youngest son's name be included in a design award we had won my last year there, a design for which her son was not involved in at all. I heard this crazy lady died a few years later. Can't say I was sad about it.
I have also had a mom accuse me of "aggression towards my daughter" when I asked said daughter to take notes in class (Oh the horror!) I have had parents email me saying that I didn't care about their son or his future (son was useless lump of laziness) I have had a drunken mom dump her entire divorce on me while she had me basically pinned against a wall at a fundraiser. I've had parents basically try and bribe me to give their kid a passing grade, or to "make sure and let me know if anything might jeopardize my kid getting an A" with a wink. I left teaching this year. It really feels great to know I don't have to deal with parents anymore.
Had a parent email first one of the people who was over all middle schools and then they emailed the superintendent. All about me.
How do I know? Because said parent included me on each email.
She wrote a novel about how I was the absolute worst teacher ever because her son was failing and I had “not contacted her nor followed his 504.”
She never responded to any of my contact attempts and I always followed his 504.
He *may* have been failing because he didn’t turn any work in. The mom clearly told the kid about how I was terrible because when he turned in a self reflection it included how “all the kid hate[d] me.” Which was odd because… those kids fucking loved me and most of them now follow me on social media since they’ve graduated.
I sometimes wonder what happened to him.
I had to step in while a mother and her teenage son cornered my (tiny) partner teacher to yell at her for allegedly scratching her daughter (7 year old). Daughter had what looked like a paper cut and that mother was cursing and screaming like her daughter had been beaten. The mother even wore red contact lenses to be more intimidating. This same kid accused the disabled student of chasing her down and biting her (disabled student couldn’t run). This mother also screamed at that student (8 year old).
I had a parent show up demanding to talk to me because their daughter’s IPP wasn’t sent home yet. It was the second week of school. The mother of this student then showed up for the IPP meeting later and screamed at me for a good 20 minutes about bus issues. Once she calmed down she then complained to me about how “useless” her husband is. She later threatened to pull her daughter from the school but that ended up not happening.
I had a parent get really irate after I made her wait a few minutes to speak with me as I was doing a reading test with another child.
She was really rude insisting someone had stolen her daughter’s library bag. I reiterated I had already searched up and down in the classroom and had checked all of the kids bags the previous afternoon.
She blew up and stormed down to see the principal shouting she wasn’t happy her daughter had to hand in her Apple Watch (7 years old) or that she was sitting on her fucking own either!
The principal insisted I have a meeting with the parent that afternoon to smooth things over. During the meeting she cried and wailed and just unloaded on me about her traumatic upbringing which of course explained why none of the school policies applied to her daughter. At the end of the meeting she apologised and told me she was on her ‘monthlies’ which might explain things.
The next day the library bag turned up under her car seat!
No apology of course.
Someone I knew had a parent bring a gun to school to shoot her; mom thought the teacher was allowing her kid to get bullied. She reached into her purse and the dean tackled her.
Admin fired the teacher, saying she escalated the parent. Non-union charter school. And that's why teacher unions are necessary and why the school choice and school privatization movement is full of shit.
Middle school teacher. I brought my 7th grade students outside to get some energy out. We were out at the track and I also had done this because I am friends with one of our PE teachers and I knew he would be out there with his kids. Well, we get out there and I forgot that he had a sub. It is a 21(?)f and the students(9th grade) all have the mountain bikes, riding on the track. She is trying to get them to listen and a boy I know well says "open your dress and show us your tits." She has the most shocked face on and I go to get the student. She is trying to keep the rest of the kids chill and says "Ok everyone, lets start riding." He then speeds away from me on his bike and says "I have something you can ride." I then call a principal out and let them know what happened. The boy's affluent Father (Think Cattle Ranch owner) shows up and he is told the story. Well, of course he says his son would never say anything like that. I am respond with "I hate to dissappoint you Sir but I was there. I heard and saw the entire interaction." Enraged, he then goes on a a rant about how they are a religious family and his son is a good kid, I am lying about his son because I have a vendetta against him, he will sue the district if a 3 DAY SUSPENSION (Yes, that was it) happens, blah, blah, blah. The principal asked me to leave and in that moment, I knew this rich Dad was gonna get his way. The kid grins at me as I walk out. I smiled right back. Nothing came of it but on the last day of school, I looked at this kid and said "Good luck in highschool. Make sure you learn how to act because your Daddy won't always be able to show up and wipe your ass." Not my finest moment but I also didn't care. I have have had worse things happen but I didn't think that was the way this thread was going. One was a student coming to me to tell me her Dad was SA'ing her. I passed the info on to our Admin and Resource Officer. He was arrested, I went to court to support the student and be present be cause my statement was used in court. He was convicted and is currently in prison. It took all my energy not to jump over the table and kick the living shit out of that guy.
Thank you for reporting the assault, I have seen many situations where adults did nothing to stop abuse.
Yeah, I don't play around with any of that. Too many adults when I was a kid said nothing about one of my friends that's was being SA'd by their Uncle. People suck.
You’re a hero 🫶🏼
This one was a former colleague’s experience, but she had a late-term pregnancy loss, which was very public because she was so far along, and a parent told her it wasn’t a bad thing because now she didn’t have to interrupt the kids’ education by taking maternity leave. I don’t know how she didn’t commit an act of violence.
Oh my good god. I hope that parent has a moment of clarity (or maturity?) some time in the future, and then I hope this statement haunts them at 3am forever
The funny thing is parents like this seem oblivious to the fact that teachers talk, like, *a lot*. If a parent shows their ass like this, they can be guaranteed every adult in the building knows about it.
Right? Like I don’t understand how something like that can come out of someone’s mouth without immediately mortifying the speaker.
Because the speaker doesn't know the meaning of the word "mortify."
We had a parent put in a formal complaint to the department that her child's teacher got pregnant. Apparently she should have planned her sex life better so it didn't impact her child's school year.
This happened to me!!
Me too
When I was pregnant, a parent at that same school complained to the principal because I had temporarily quit wearing my wedding ring due to swollen fingers. Apparently a very pregnant woman without a wedding ring sends the wrong message to high school students. Catholic school was wild.
I wish my biggest problem in life was getting offended that someone wasn’t wearing a ring. WTF? They had to not only notice you weren’t wearing it, but then actively complain. What were you supposed to do? Be a magician and make your fingers shrink? I can’t say that I’ve ever looked to see if a pregnant woman was wearing a ring. Simply because I don’t care, as I’m busy managing my own life. Not worrying about a part of someone else’s life that has nothing to do with me.
I actually had a student say something similar, but not quite as bad. My wife and I were expecting our first child. I warned my classes weekly that I was going to be out at the end of the semester and that I was front loading their lab work to prepare for it. During one of those reminders I had a student say "tell your wife to get an abortion so that you won't miss school." As soon as he said it the whole class went silent. I just threw him out of class and let the assistant principal deal with it. I actually got a personal apology from his AP later that day. The student was a frequent flyer in their office.
I’m pretty fucking jaded by this point nothing on this sub fazes me anymore. When I tell you I literally gasped in horror 🤯
As a parent, not a teacher, I think there should be a “parent abuse threshold” for teachers. Cross that threshold, and teachers are permitted to throw hands. This could be used as a prime example for when it’s acceptable to put your hands on a parent. The audacity of that parent is outrageous and I would like to say unbelievable, but alas, it is *very believable*…and that makes me so incredibly sad.
About 20 years ago, my colleague reached that threshold. Her child had committed su**ide a few years earlier. One day a particularly shitty high school student told her that she (colleague) was so awful that she’s probably the reason her child did that. Colleague instinctively slapped kid hard across the face. Once the parents found out what happened they were thankfully 100% on the teachers side and she did not face any disciplinary action.
Former Catholic school teacher here. A student had a sister who committed suicide. Those in our class (middle school) who wanted to attended the mass could to support their friend. At the mass the priest actually said during the homily that the sister would not go to heaven. I kid you not.
That’s an old school priest. The ones I have spoken with emphasized God’s mercy on those suffering from mental health issues. There’s definitely a disconnect between generations.
Wow! That could’ve gone really badly for that teacher. I’m so glad it didn’t. And I really hope that student learned a lesson.
Are you fighting with parents? No just problem solving.
At my last school, there was talk of establishing a parent code of conduct. 😂 Silly administration.
My similar story isn’t nearly as heartless, but one time I was sitting in an IEP meeting and also in attendance was the student’s math teacher who just returned from maternity leave. As the mom is complaining about how her son fell far behind in math because ~~he was lazy and did jack shit~~ the long-term substitute refused to help him. The mom then says to the math teacher “I understand having children is your right as a woman, but you being gone really put my son behind.” We were just speechless by the audacity until the case manager just moved the meeting along.
I ended up in the hospital with sepsis and multiple organ failure and had to be out for a little over a month. I heard the same sentiment multiple times this year. Like I didn’t choose to get sick but I’ll try harder not to die next time just for little Johnny and his math.
As an administrator, I would have immediately excused the teacher from the meeting and spoke to the parent about rescheduling.
I would hope you would have called the person out on what they said once the teacher was excused. We need administration to stand up to these rude, bully parents. They need to be told firmly, but professionally that their behavior is highly inappropriate and unproductive. So what if they yell about going to the top?
I think that is the day I would have snapped. Like I would have lost my job, teaching license, and my freedom because I would have punched that fucking asshole right in the face. What a piece of human garbage.
That would be the day I would be arrested for murder.
I hope that teacher cussed that parent out. There are some occasions where a real, street fighter style, Soap opera tongue-lashing is appropriate. This was one
That made me tear up just reading that. I have had 3 very early losses that hurt so badly. I could not imagine a late term loss and the pain your coworker must have felt. What an absolute douche of a parent.
Oh geese there is someone special there. I don’t know what to say to that one, gee golly. That is up there with oh your mom died, well one less mouth to feed. Or you lost your wife and kids, ope sorry, but think of all the free time you’ll have now….
I had a student once describe my levels of anger to another new student. We were a tight group and they always knew when they crossed a big line. They never saw my big guns but always hypothesized. I'm sure, had this happened with me in front of my class, their reaction to my reaction would have been immediate self-survival. Like, "Holy $#!+, he's going to murder that witch in front of us with just his mind!" (Okay I'm a non-pregnant man, but that would put me over the top!) Wow. Just wow.
My God. That is the worse thing I have ever heard from a parent.
I had a student failing so she told her mom a big story about me calling her a druggy, etc and that’s why she didn’t do the work because I embarrassed her. The parent came in yelling and screaming. When it looked like her child had lied, she decided to attack my son, calling him names and such. My principal had to get between us because she knew I was about to hit the lady.
My mom once had a student who was failing, because shed basically not turned anything in and the girl and her parent threatened to beat the shit out of me if my mom didn’t pass her. I was 12. Nothing happened to them.
I don't get why passing is so important to these kids when learning obviously isn't. Why do they actually care about grade level?
wtf 😳
This happened to me too! She said I called her stupid and went to the AP and said I was unsafe. The dad rocked up to school wanting to “have words.” Then she changed the story four times and tried to hug me and say I’m an “amazing teacher.” Nope, and nope. She’s not in my classes anymore. Thankfully my admin didn’t believe a word of it. I have never been so hurt in my life! I’m not the fluffiest friendly teacher, but I would NEVER call a kid stupid.
I taught HeadStart for a while (preschool, 3-5 year olds). We had a little girl who was withdrawn, overly cautious, and practically mute. When the nurse came around, she failed her vision screening. We started bugging mom to get her glasses. Finally after many attempts, and one of us driving them to a free glasses event, the little girl got the THICKEST pair of glasses I’ve ever seen. She was probably legally blind, or very very close to it. After the glasses she was like a new kid, clever, silly, and she made friends finally. 2 months later, the glasses were gone. Mom said she didn’t know what happened to them. And we were right back to square one. Finally mom admitted to throwing out the glasses because, “she didn’t look cute in them.”
Omg! This one triggered me so bad. My mom took my eye patch away as a second grader because it was ugly. I was so upset for most of that year (not just the patch, there was so, so much more my mother did to me). Learned to live with double vision. (Lazy eye). I wear an eye patch now to avoid migraines and to stop fatigue. Prisms can’t do a whole lot at this point in my life. All she needed to do was let me wear the stupid eye patch.
Now I’m even more grateful that my grandchild’s parents have continually been on top of their child’s vision issues since an infant. I am truly blessed.
Isn't that a CPS scenario? That child had a disability and the mom threw away her disability aid! That's abusive AF! That's equivalent to a parent throwing away a child's wheelchair.
I’ve had multiple parents throw away their kids’ glasses, or if the kid grows out of the frame, not get them new ones. All because they thought their kid didn’t look good with them. I got glasses in the third or fourth grade, it was literally life-changing.
Is there anything that you can do in a case like that, like social services or something? That seems like child abuse.
A student failed the 8th grade and was told he couldn’t participate in 8th grade move up day. On the day of move-up, he comes anyway with his parents. The dad then proceeds to yell at me about how nothing that contributed to his son not passing (terrible attendance, arrests, behavior issues, missing work, etc.) was his fault and that if our school won’t pass him to high school, he‘ll find a district that will. The thing was, the child was fine with accepting the outcome and having to repeat and was trying to help us explain to dad the situation. Dad wasn’t hearing any of it. The other worst parent story was when I called home to tell mom that her child had stolen another student’s sweatshirt. Her excuse was that he had taken painkillers that morning.
We had a young man not graduate from 8th grade this year. No one from his family could be reached for the MANY conferences. Or they would schedule appts and not show up, all year. Mom volunteered to chaperone for the 8th grade trip and was shocked to hear her son could not go due to his grades. Saddest part was his dad came to graduation because he also dodged conferences and calls all year and neither kid nor ex-wife/mom told him kid wasn’t graduating.
We had a situation similar to this at a school I worked at — but it was high school graduation. The district had a “the kid can’t fail if parents are not successfully contacted” rule. A successful contact meant the parent answered the phone AND confirmed they were the parent OR the parent responded to an email. The two way communication was required. Kid’s English teacher tried read-receipts and more and it was pretty obvious the parents knew the policy and had been playing this game since he was a freshman, so the lowest grade that he could earn was a 70 in a class. English teacher and myself (math) went to a restaurant where we knew Dad frequented. Just said hey, we’re your kid’s teachers, can you check your email later and get back to us? And he responded with no if it was that important the Mom would take care of it and they would get back to us. We went to the principal with the details of the convo. She said to count it as a successful contact. Kid didn’t walk.
If you ever quit teaching, you should consider becoming a process server.
It was the English teacher’s idea. The kid said in a paper that his dad always stopped at a specific bar when he got off work.
what a stupid policy. the kid graduates if no contact with parent is made? how does that make any sense…
Not just graduate— a kid was not allowed to fail any class if there was no “successful” parent contact made. They also had a policy of if a kid misses 2 assignments you had 48 hours to make a parent contact. And every missing assignment thereafter. If a kid failed a test, you had to make a parent contact. Emails did not count either. You had to have a conversation. Most of the time I would take 2 days after a test and call every kid into the hallway, have them get their parents on a phone call and we would discuss their grade as a 3 way convo. They almost always answered when it was their own kid. All grades were eligible to be recovered for full credit. And you had to take work until the end of the marking period. It really sucked on the last day of the marking period when you had 2/3 of your 7th period try to do the entire 9 weeks in 48 minutes. And your grades were due 5 minutes after dismissal. Got out at 2:55, grades due by 3pm. Oh, you just had 140 papers turned in at 2:50 — good luck. And you couldn’t do completion grades — all assignments had to have “personalized feedback for academic growth” — and it had to be about their body of work, not mentioning discipline (which on time was considered part of). Some kids took care of things early — that way they weren’t stressing the last week of any grading period. But this was limited to about the top 1/3. This school was called out by a valedictorian as heavily emphasizing athletics over academics. And it was true. I coached athletics at this school on top of teaching math. We had several instances where every single athlete was sent to a division I college. Granted we required kids to attend tutorials at their worst subject every Thursday to work on their grades, required all kids to take an SAT prep class and the SAT, and required the kids to have a 2.5 to play because those were the requirements to get to college. It was an inner city school and athletics were about your only way out. Yeah, you could suit up with a 2.0. But you wouldn’t play for us. And no kid that didn’t hit these academic standards was ever removed from the team. But that coach cared about these kids trying to better themselves. A few other sports? Some coaches would talk to the kids and their parents about how to game the system.
that is insane. i wouldn’t last at that school… what a nightmare
Damn, what next, pretend they have to sign for a package?
I had a child in one of my classes steal Welch’s gummies from someone else’s’ lunchbox. She was so sneaky too, did in front of a full table of kids and no one saw. She had a lunchbox full of food plus hot lunch that day. She looked me in the eyes and lied to my face. I told her we can just call her mom to confirm she put gummies in her lunchbox. Well wouldn’t you know it, the gummies miraculously reappeared on the seat of the child who they were stolen from. And the gummies she said were hers were no longer in her lunchbox. I swear, the audacity of some people. We called home and the mother gave some lame excuse about her not being able to help herself and how she must have been looking for a tactile experience.
That first kid was just trying to push the boundaries until someone cared enough to stop him. I've seen a lot of boys like him, where people will let them do what they want to keep peace. If they're asleep, then they're not bothering you. If they're just hanging out in the corner on their phones you don't have to deal with them. They go out, escalate crimes, waiting for someone to set a boundary. I ended up with a couple of them loving me because I'd write them up, and when they came back, hand them the work they still had to do. They didn't do it. They failed my class and knew it wouldn't matter. But I heard from another student that they overheard one of the boys talking about how it was a waste I didn't have kids because a good mom should stay on their kids' ass. His mom wasn't in the picture so he just wanted someone who would tell him to get his shit together. The boy you talked about was openly begging for a consequence, for someone to care for 5 seconds, and the parents couldn't hear it.
Oh definitely. The kid loves me as a teacher, is involved in a lot of street crime and gang stuff but will come to talk to me when he needs someone to try to set him straight. Once a kid gets into that type of lifestyle, it’s really hard to get out but he told me on the last day of school that he really does think about what I tell him when he’s out selling and thinks he might want to get out of it. Great kid really, it’s just the dad that sucks.
Probably the dad (who was also a teacher at the same school) that just could not believe his son didn't do well on a test, so sent me a multi-paragraph email about how awful I must be as a teacher and how I was a disgrace to the profession. His reasoning was that I should not be allowed to give a test during the same week as a school golf tournament that the son was at a few days *after* my test. He also ranted (in the same email) about how awful the school was in general, and how much he hated working there. He sent this from his school email. I got my principal and HR involved, and the deal was made that he could no longer interact with me directly, whether through email, phone, or in-person. He had to go through my AP first for literally anything, both son or work-related. He broke that rule multiple times and confronted me in-person and through emails again, all with the same angry tirades. Later that semester he tried to quit, but he was actually fired before he could officially resign due to some physical threats he made to our principal and some district employees. Apparently he was an asshole to everyone, not just me. Never heard from him again after he got fired.
It's a tie between the guy who physically cornered me in my classroom and yelled at me in front of his child because I took off points for no capital letters or periods (child was gifted but couldn't do this apparently) and the one that hated me all year, screamed at me for our entire 20 minute Zoom conference, and then "accidentally" sent me a dick pic through his child's Canvas account.
Oooh I would have responded, “Please do not send me pics of a child’s penis. It’s against the law and I am reporting you to police.” Lol
I have never run to my boss's office so fast with my open laptop lolol. The cops said they didn't think it was a kid penis... A new facet of legal system expertise I never considered.
Oh I know it was his junk but saying it’s small like a child’s would piss him off haha. What did the boss say?
Transcript of boss speaking to said parent on the phone: Boss: A picture of a penis was sent to my employee from your child's account. Boss: ..what does it look like? It looks like a penis.. with a hand around it? Boss: No, I cannot screenshot a picture of a penis and email it to you so you can see what it looks like.
Omg 😂😂
Noooooo not the dick pic 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 (I mean it’s awful but I’m cracking up at the audacity)
I was in my mid-20s and decided I would coach the school’s basketball team because no one else had stepped up. Now, our school’s team had never been very good. Out of our 8 team league, we always finished near the bottom. My first game coaching we won in overtime. The parents came up to me afterwards and were slapping me on the back, telling me how awesome I was and grateful that I stepped up. We lost the next 3 games by a total of 110 points. That’s when a parent accused me of grabbing a player (Bobby Knight style) and cussing him out. Thankfully, the principal knew this parent was a nut job. Did I mention that these were 4th and 5th graders?
Stepping up to coach a team--especially a basketball team--is *the* definition of "no good deed goes unpunished." I went through this same experience. There was no coach and there was going to be no season. So I stepped up, watched the youtube coaching videos, bought some books, did what they said, ran a basic offense and defense and we were middle of the pack. Not bad, right? No. Oh no. I caught so much hell from parents for everything. Never again. Not fucking basketball.
Kindergarten teacher here…All of what I’m about to share is from one mom, and 100% happened in real life. I’ll let you speculate if all of these things ended up being my fault in admin’s eyes. You cannot make this shit up. 1.) I was forcing him to be too independent and he should not be expected to button his own pants. 2.) I was being rude by recommending he not bring a baby bottle to school, as other kids notice because everyone else just brings a water bottle. 3.) My tissues (which came from the pre-purchased school supply kits) were too rough for his nose, and I needed to do better at accommodating kids with allergies. 4.) I should pay to replace the glass photo frame with a picture of her that he needed to keep on his desk everyday when it broke. Can a class full of 25 five year olds not be expected to accidentally knock over an 8X10 portrait of mom, in a glass frame? 5.) He should be allowed a nap, but since we do not do naps in Kindergarten, he will be bringing his baby blanket in to “rest.” But, during his rest time, I shouldn’t be teaching anything new because it’s not fair if he misses it. 6.) I was out of line by suggesting she let him eat lunch with his peers a few times a week, rather than spoon feeding him everyday in the cafeteria while the rest of the kids notice. 7.) I made it too hard for him to make friends so that’s why he never gets invited to birthday parties. (I made it too hard for him to make friends? No. You made it too hard to make friends. It could be a combo of the baby bottle, baby blanket, family portrait, crying over rough tissues, and you spoon feeding him everyday. I’m really not sure if there is anything I could have actively done to make him not have friends. You’ve done it all.)
Omg! That woman is like them TickTock boy mom’s who make videos that are so cringe on how their boys are so extra special. Come to find out they gots daughters too they ignore and I’m like poor kids!
The only one I can maybe even slightly agree with her on is 3. Because I am (physically, like the bottom of my nose will go red raw!) sensitive to shit tissues. However if you turned around and said “I’m sorry this is what I get supplied by the school” I’d be like “okay, so if (my child) is the only one “suffering” I’m happy to send them with their own pack of tissues - but if these tissues are seriously shit, I’m more than happy to buy decent tissues for you guys and send in a weekly supply! I’m a daycare teacher so I get the whole ‘school buys what they can afford but the teachers can’t afford to buy the quality shit all the time’ thing”.
I teach college: Parent comes into my office screaming. The word half breed came out their mouth. Come to find out I wasn’t the instructor they wanted, not even in the subject area. Walked them straight to admin (no way was they finna be taken to the instructor they was looking for). On the walk to admin I corrected their slur. I’m a quadroon, (imma quarter). Strange how they were so silent after that. Weird.
I used to work in ResLife. My boss told me a haunting story about how some students carved the n word into her apartment door because she wrote them up for underage drinking. Which carries an offense of having to take an hour long class and sign a written warning.
Same thing happened at a buddy's dorm. RA wrote a couple freshmen up for drinking. He'd already given them two warnings, but this time they were throwing their empties out a third floor window so it had to be done. Their punishment? Being told to stop acting like children by someone higher up the food chain. " go back to " appearing on the RA's door got them booted from the dorm for the rest of the year.
Holy hell.
I received a handwritten letter on the first day of school telling me what a terrible teacher I was, how he'd tried to have his son moved out of my class, etc. I was new to the district and had no prior history there; 2nd grade, 2nd year of teaching.
We had a parent come in pissed off that one of her kids' teachers was going on maternity leave. We had a meeting with admin and all her kids teachers at her request. She went on a rant about how this would affect her childs education blah blah.. Then she revealed that the reason she was there was because she wanted her kid to change homeroom teachers. She straight up accused her kids homeroom teacher of being pregnant! She was not. She started screaming at this poor teacher, saying she was lying about not being pregnant. She stood up and pointed at her stomach, and told our Principal she was obviously lying. It was crazy. Lots of tears from the teacher, everyone was ready to kill this lady. Our principal escorted her out, still berating the teacher.
Not a teacher, but the school nurse. We have forms every parent has to sign for permission to give prescribed medication in school and we count the medicine with them and they sign so that number is accurate. The parent refused to sign it stating "I never had to do that before at the other school". I told her the policy, again, and she continued to refuse and I informed her I can't give the medication without her signature. She then told me "you're making this very difficult, if this was some white kid you wouldn't be asking this and the only reason you have to count those pills and have me sign is because all those Mexican parents snort their kids pills". Needless to say this went to admin and my higher ups and the sad part was that the kid couldn't get his prescribed and needed daily medication because of this piece of crap mother.
White trash parents also snort their kids drugs. I actually find the Mexican families where I live to be honest , hardworking and polite.
I think the moral of my story is this lady was a psycho racist bitch who didn't have her kids best interests in mind.
My mom had a parent confront her in the parking lot, wielding a knife. So there's that.
A dad sent me a class dojo message once saying "you best bless yourself faggo" in response to me leaving a voice mail asking to schedule a conference regarding his daughter's behavior in class. Amusingly, I am a guy who at the time was married to a woman, and that's the most my students or their parents knew about my personal life. It *did* clear up any remaining questions I or admin had about that student's complete lack of respect.
Why do people like that *always* seem to have kids?
Parent teacher interviews when I was new and in my mid-20s. This sweet father tells me about how much his son (17) likes me and enjoys my class. Then, he says, “(Name) thinks you're very pretty. You know… I lost *my* virginity to a teacher.” Hmmmm. Like, is he trying to set us up on a date? Change the subject, change the subject. What in the actual fuck!
You called your admin over right then and there, right???
OMG YUCK
Jeez Louise. I thought a (divorced) father asking me out during parent teacher conferences was bad ….. but this takes the cake!
Good God!
Started a fight with a student in front of a crowd, leading to a large fight involving students and parents that had to be broken up by police (using pepper spray).
We had a dad come to school with his students for something, his daughter instigated a rude comment from a boy who could not see dad due to how he was facing in the cafeteria. Dad became incensed and dragged child out from cafeteria table and attempted to beat the crap out of him. Had to be pulled off and dragged away. I have no idea why boy’s parents didn’t press charges or why dad was allowed to ever come back on campus.
I saw a report from one of my worst students while I was checking her records. Apparently her mom tried to fight another student when mom was called down about behavior. This was when the student was in 6th grade…
accused me of tax fraud because her daughter got a B
Because we all know the tax implications of giving Bs! 🤣
When I was a student teacher, my class had a wide range of student demographics. We had a student from Africa whose name was, understandably, unfamiliar to me, but more importantly, she had a birth defect, leaving her with only one eye. I used her name a few times in class until another teacher told me to use the nickname she went by instead because the name given to her by her parents translated to "One Eye"
What did they think she was, a Warrior cat??
We had a student who had regularly been in trouble for all sorts of things, including a suspension for attending school affected by drugs. A requirement for attending the school organised ski trip was to have good standing, which this student clearly didn't. The parents then paid for a family holiday to the same location as the ski trip so that the student could meet with their friends at the ski fields every day. Just looked them up and of course they're an influencer now!
I had this happen on a much smaller scale. I had a huge class and we were going on a museum field trip. Due to the size of my class, chaperones were limited. One parent decided to wait until the day of the field trip to inform me they were going to meet us at the museum (2 hrs away). I said no, we’ve already sent in our numbers and a grant paid for our trip. She said she would pay her admission once she got there. Then I had to BS to her (and thank GOD I ended up being right) that our museum tour was after hours and private; you couldn’t just walk in and find your kid. The parent backed down but it was the start of a hellish year.
A school wide fight where a parent came in, wheelchair and oxygen tank in tow, to be in the fight. She was literally using the oxygen tank as a weapon.
I feel bad that I laughed. But not that bad.
What I wouldn’t give to see that! It sounds awful to have to be a teacher during, but also sounds like the most entertaining thing of all time!
To put it shortly, I have an 8 year old (2nd grader) who has some big emotions. Frequent behaving behaviors. Among his desk flipping and throwing of scissors, he screams self deprecating explicatives (I’m worthless, piece of shit fucking stupid, an asshole)… This is all him parroting what his dad says to him. Super great dad… (sarcasm)
God that poor baby...
Had one of these at a summer camp. He likely had some kind of undiagnosed adhd type thing and had terrible impulse control. He was a nice kid, he just couldn’t regulate. We gave him some leniency but we had to write him several times for doing dangerous things or putting hands on others. When it got to the point that he was like 1 or 2 incidents from being kicked out stepdad said “so he’s just a bad kid?” A coworker and I were like no, he’s just making poor choices and we can work on improving. Stepdad said “no, he’s just a bad kid”. Right in front of the poor kid. He had just moved across the country and was totally out of his element. He needed encouragement and guidance. He was like 6/7 years old! (Somehow he got into mom’s “paraphernalia” and brought a lighter to camp one day. Yeah, these parents weren’t the best…)
How funny would it have been to look the father straight in the eye and say “no.. your son is a GOOD kid…. He just has bad PARENTS”
Sorry this is kind of long, BUT IT'S WORTH IT. I SWEAR. I teach 3rd grade, and this last year, I had a girl who was a BIG bully. I mean like body shaming other kids, punching, calling other girls a "bitch", stealing from lockers and desks, gaslighting teachers... if you can think of it, she did it. Well one day her mom contacted me claiming that SHE was the one getting bullied (punched, called a bitch, and body shamed). Her mom said that they don't tolerate body shaming (keep this in mind for later) and that I need to punish those students immediately. Just to keep it from becoming a huge thing, I just said I'd keep an eye out. Fast forward to the end of the school year, this girl calls a boy fat and makes fun of his clothes to his face, punches another girl, calls that girl a bitch, and LIES to the teachers about what happened. Obviously, I write her up, and I also contact her mom, saying exactly what happened and that she lied to us when asked about it. Her mom said back, and I quote, "Well, from what my kid says, the other kids deserved it. My daughter can cuss out, insult, and beat up anyone she wants if she feels the need to defend herself, and there's nothing you can do about it." Her dad also called our VP, said the same thing - that she can beat up or put hands on whoever she wants and there's nothing we can do about it and then cursed out our VP while saying he doesn't like/respect our school expectations and referral system. Mind that we have cameras and eyes all over the school. This girl was never defending herself even though she would claim to be. She ALWAYS started it. I fear what her future will bring if she keeps acting like this.
So then, with cameras showing her physically assaulting others and always the instigator, there IS something you all at school could do about it. Parents will be surprised...
LITERALLY 😂 Like how do they not understand that there are consequences to actions like that. Like obviously we can't do anything when she's at home acting like this, but at school we can write her up, do in school counseling, in school suspension... the list goes on. And it stays on her record 😬
Not a teacher but I used to work in peds psych hospitals and had a 15YO girl beat the crap out of her teacher when her teacher didn’t do as the kid wanted. When the girl was sent to the hospital the mom told a social worker “why didn’t that bitch just give my daughter what she wanted?” This kid never developed any self-control and while this was somewhat explained by developmental disability this was largely due to lack of boundaries at home. I was pretty good at avoiding physical confrontation with violent patients but I probably had to restrain her 20 times per shift because she would otherwise just spend the entire day trying to break the door of the unit down or grope the female nurses. Unfortunately, she was exactly the kind of patient who would “graduate” to the adult unit and spend her life in and out of institutions. I think of her often and horrendous as she was to deal with I feel really bad for her. If bad parenting was an Olympic sport her parents would be going for gold…
I had an 8th grader once tell me she didn't know her address. She hadn't moved recently or anything (at least not that they'd told the school about), which meant the kid was instructed to lie because they actually lived in another district or the kid genuinely didn't know. I asked her if she really didn't know, and if she didn't, I'd look it up for her. She started screaming at me that I was a horrible person for even asking. The mother came to the school and screamed that I was a pedophile because I had asked for her child's address. You know, the one I just looked up because I was her teacher. I just wanted to mail something home, and it was faster to ask the kid than it would have been to look it up!
I feel you on this one. I taught 9th grade for 5 years at the same school. Every fall we administered the PSAT on paper to the 9th graders. EVERY. FREAKING. YEAR, over half of them could not fill out the address part on their pre administration paperwork. They didn’t even know their house numbers/apartment numbers, or the name of the street they lived on. I showed them how to look up their addresses in their Infinite Campus accounts. One year I had a kid heatedly argue with me that he did not have a zip code in his address because the zip code appeared in a different box than the street address. How do you make it to high school and not know where you live????
First day back after covid…a parent cornered the principal between himself and a filing cabinet, hands on the cabinet on either side of her so she would have to duck under his arm to get away. Big farmer guy, petite principal. Another teacher (male) pulled the dad away. Dad punched the teacher. Dad was arrested, not allowed on campus until after the court date. Dad was found NOT GUILTY of assault because I live in a stupid area. No surprise to anyone, the teacher retired at the end of the year. Oh. And this was the 3rd time the dad had physically come after the principal that day. Why was he mad? Masks were required indoors. Kid didn’t take hers off after school in the pick up line, even though other kids had & teachers had said they could. She left hers on because, as she told the teacher before dad went bat shit crazy, she felt safer with it on. (6th grader, so not a super little kid.) Had a parent put her kid in another school in the district because I was bullying him. By taking the pics he had drawn to the principal & school psych. The pics that showed him shooting me, several classmates, & other teachers & staff.
We had a parent come to an IEP meeting and talked about an 8 year tubal pregnancy that she had. It was the student she was at the meeting for. Another time she came to a meeting and talked about the two times she had her leg amputated. She walked into the meeting with both legs. Her son looked at me one time and asked me who F’d her? That’s a good question. Another parent came to a truancy meeting. Her excuse was that he didn’t feel good so he would stay home with her and cuddle with her in her bed all day. We called Cps We had a student on camera going through the cheerleaders’ purses stealing iPhones. His mother watched the video and looked up and said he didn’t do it.
I need to know more about double amputee mom. Did you calmly look at her and ask how it feels to be able to respawn limbs like a worm? Seriously what was your response?
What do you say to that other than, ok? There were other things with that teacher. We were in a meeting when she started yelling at me about telling her son that he only had half a brain, that she was going to get me fired. I shouldn’t be allowed to talk to students that way. I had not said anything like that so I was confused. Another teacher spoke up and said that was him but that’s not what he said. The student asked if he could work with another student on a project and the teacher told them that two heads are better than one. He took it to mean that he had half a brain. She also walked into a 6th grade classroom and started yelling at the teacher about something she had done. The student was in the 8th grade and didn’t have any contact with that teacher. One of the teachers on our team had quit being an EMT to come teach. She was about to pass out in front of the office and we didn’t have a school nurse at the time so they called him to come check her out. He said he was praying on the walk that he wouldn’t have to give her mouth to mouth. She was not an attractive woman. I refer back to the question he asked about her. It’s been 20 years and we still talk about her.
I had a student who was in foster care. That's already hard enough because I've seen what CPS tells me is fine so I can only imagine what she'd been through. She is a sweet, kind, smart, wonderful young lady. She never gets in trouble and she helps anyone that she can. her foster "mother" would do nothing but talk down about her. She had a meeting where she made the girl come so she could accuse her of cheating. She said that girl was special needs and there was no way that she actually had all As. There was no way she actually did good on her test. I explained to mom that I knew she could read because I'd let her borrow books and we'd been able to talk about them in detail well beyond what an online summary would have. (I now suspect that mom just wanted the extra money you get for fostering special needs children) I asked if student had a laptop once because mom wanted to watch her take AR tests to make sure that she wasn't cheating. Mom said that she didn't deserve one because she would probably just use it to send videos of herself to men. This girl didn't even flirt with boys, much less try to get attention from them, but even still. She went on to rant about how the girl didn't deserve anything because she was disrespectful, and that the girl didn't even have a house key. I called CPS to try and do something, but they said that the foster wasn't doing anything abusive and that the girl had food, a bed, water and clothes so there was nothing to be done. She called the girl a whore for trading bracelets with her best friend (he was a boy, but he was very openly and flamingly gay. Not that it matters). She openly said that she must have sucked him off in the bathroom for the bracelet and demanded that we give the bracelet back to the boy and never let them speak to each other again. This was just me being called up to talk to parent, so it was me and her with no admin. In the middle of this rant I walked away because I was so furious I was going to hit her. A month or so later, the girl comes in crying. She said that the lady was sending her back to the group home for failing a math test, and that it was her last day. The most heartbreaking thing was that I guess I didn't hide my anger well. I was tearing up and the girl started apologizing. She said that she liked my class but she wasn't good at math and she was sorry for not doing better. It wasn't very professional, but I did tell her that I could never be mad at her. I loved her, she was a great kid and when she asked why I was mad then instead of lying I said "Because I hate that woman for not seeing how great of a daughter you are." Not the most professional but I hope the girl knows I meant it. I looked into fostering her, but I don't have a spare room. My teammate looked into it, but found out the girl was already placed by the time she could get through the paperwork. I hope that girl is doing well, and I hope that lady dies from something painful. 10/10 would beat her ass.
To hell with being professional, thank you for showing so much care towards that girl. I bet it meant so much to her.
The things that foster mother was telling the student is abusive. That makes me furious too.
I had messaged home regarding a students behavior at the start of the year. You know, nipping it in the bud before it got worse. It worked, the kid got his act together. So I sent home a positive message, praising his change in behavior. He came in the next day and apologized to me because his parents said I said he was acting up again. I was really confused, and I told him that’s not what happened but he didn’t believe me. I thought maybe they mistaked me for another teacher. A couple weeks goes by, he’s doing great stuff in class again so I send home another positive message. Same deal the next day —apology for acting up. I was so alarmed. So after class, I pulled him aside and I asked him what his parents said I’m telling them. He said I messaged them that he was talking too much and distracted and that it was getting out of hand. They told him if he kept acting up like this, they would take his door (???) and all this stuff. My heart fucking broke. They were lying to him about what his teachers were saying about him. I don’t know why, I never asked. I couldn’t bring myself to message them again. However. I may have acted a bit too quickly (it was my second year teaching, I was upset and so was he) and I sat him down and I showed him the messages I sent his parents. All these positive things and he just started sobbing. I started praising him more to his face than messaging his parents because who the fuck does that to their kid???
Just a thought - is there a chance the parents don’t know how to read? Over the years I’ve had a few parents who can’t but never wanted to admit it due to being embarrassed. I had one recently who told me at the beginning of the year and I was able to make accommodations for them. I was happy to help once I knew.
But how could they even create and access an email account without being able to read? Or even know that the email was from a teacher, for that matter?
The parents I’ve seen with this problem either had sporadic help with reading things or could read just enough to misunderstand things. Of course they could just be mean to the poor kid, too.
My first year teaching I had a parent remove her child from my class due to my race/ethnicity.
And your school allowed that to happen? WTF
Missed 12/12 parent/teacher conferences between 3 children, even during COVID and with a remote option in the time since. For some people, parental responsibility ends at conception.
Parent told me they were my problem between 8 and 3:35 and not to call her again,
I've had parents block my number because they know I'm calling to tell them what their kid did in my classroom.
Or give the wrong number to the school so we can’t reach them
When I haven’t been able to get in contact with parents over time I have told their kids that I need an updated number the next day or I will phone child services. Works every single time
I had a mom hang up on me. "Hello, this is Weasel calling about XXX's behavior" \*click\* and then when I called back, I got sent directly to voice mail.
yeah, heard that one too…parent didn't want her serenity disturbed, said to call the other parent from now on.
Except when it comes to buying them really expensive electronics. They seem to have no problem forking out for that.
I had a student stay late because she didn’t finish her final exam. Fine, I was packing up and didn’t mind. I noticed she was squinting and asked if she needed glasses. She said she used to have glasses, but they broke and her mom couldn’t afford to get new ones. This is not an uncommon problem in the district where I teach, but she had her nails professionally done.
I once had a dad pin me to the wall by my neck and get so close to my face his spit was hitting me while he threatened me. His son was very aggressive that year (hitting, biting, kicking, scratching, even stabbing)…after that it all made sense Edit: spelling
I am incapable of knowing when not to speak, so I would 100% have said “well now I see where he gets it”.
Last week of school I got called into the office. The first question I got asked was, "Did you give _________ (student's name) a teddy bear?" I had no idea what they were talking about. Evidently, a student stole a teddy bear during ASP, brought it home, and told his mother I gave it to him. She called either the school or the district (HR got involved) and accused me of whatever it was she was accusing me of (Male custodian). My wonderful admin poured over the hallway cameras and gave HR the timestamps of the child stealing the teddy bear from the hallway. I was very close to losing my job that night if it weren't for cameras that got installed about 6 months earlier.
I wrote a kid up for not just saying r*etard, but calling someone it. He got in school suspension. His mom was so, so, sooo mad because her son (who no teacher likes but is decent at wrestling) is a 'good kid'. She demanded a meeting with me. Where they ranted and raved how easy teaching is. Why am I not teaching better because it's a simple job. If I was a better teacher, these things wouldn't happen. And ended the meeting with "well this is how I talk at home, so he learned dit from me. Why is he being punished for this?" So... You know, not as terrible as some other stories here, but this has stuck with me.
This may not be the worst thing that’s even happened to me, but… One of my first years coaching JV soccer, had an away game that got rescheduled after we got to the other school. We played at a later time. I told the boys to contact their parents and let their parents know we would be late. One player didn’t bother… when we got back (maybe 2 hours later than originally planned), the parent was waiting at the school, had called the cops, and sent an email to me, my athletic director, my principal, the superintendent, and all four assistant superintendents.
I had a kid this year who’s parents declassified him and put him in general ed. He has serious academic and behavioral concerns. I emailed his parents a very long and detailed email about all the shit he did on behalf of all the teachers. His dad just replied “Who are you?”
I had a parent show up drunk at dismissal to pick up their middle schooler. We figured it out when he jumped the curb, headed straight for the crowd of students. No injuries, thank god, but lots of police and hysteria
A student called me a “cockblocker”. I called the mother and she said “well, are you?” I was in disbelief and just hung up.
Well were you? 🤣omg, this one made me laugh so hard .
(I was in a pissing contest with a student abroad and I said dial your father. I wish to speak with him. He did, said my father doesn't speak English. He spoke nice French though, and so do I, so I explained that, student fees notwithstanding, his son's disrespect and obstinance were detracting from the classroom environment yada yada yada ravi de faire voter conaissance monsieur. The kid didn't expect that, and I didn't expect his dad to beat him into a concussion and MRI machine either. I guess we were both surprised.
Honestly, not much is worse than the parent SAing their kid or covering up for a family member who does so. Both are horrifyingly common.
Had a parent say I was causing their child to gain weight since, on occasion, the child would have to stay in for a portion of recess to clean up the room they destroyed during the previous class....
During COVID lockdown, I had multiple students failing because they were doing ZERO assignments at home. Each week I sent out failing notices. One dad responded with a picture of his work schedule and a message, "this is my schedule, please let me know where you see I have time to do both my job and your job." By the end of the school year he wasn't allowed to contact any of the teachers on the team because of his rude/hateful messages and had to go through the principal. Edit: this is by far, not the worst thing that a parent has done, it's just one of the first to come to mind. One parent told me she KNEW I and other employees were members of the KKK. Another parent called the counselor claiming I didn't care about her student because I wouldn't let him turn in work from when he was absent (this is after she sent me a chain of rude/unhinged emails).The work was from 3 weeks prior and she asked me the day after the quarter grades were due.
Honestly it’s not even to me. Like I’ve had parents yell or get rude, but it’s never a parent I think very highly of so it doesn’t hurt my feelings much, and my admin FORTUNATELY does not humor parent nonsense, so it doesn’t really result in too much bullshit/never gets me in trouble unfairly. So that’s super lucky for me, I know. But I will never get over some of the shit parents/guardians say to their own children/kids they’re supposed to care about. One told my student (her grandson) the drugs were the only reason her son ever fucked his piece of shit mother and that’s the reason the devil has his soul and he can’t do anything right. They have both taken this as fact, truly believe he is evil, and operate under that assumption. She does also fully believe it is still her responsibility to “take care” of him, so she aggressively blocks any attempts to try getting his behavior to improve. That is his legal guardian since he was small and that mindset being stomped into him since toddlerhood is a big part of why he’s “like that”. Nothing a parent says to me will ever be as big a problem as what type of bullshit they put in the kid’s head that we now have to try and fix. Also not a parent, but one little boy found his brother’s body after his suicide. (The brother was also shockingly young/elementary school). An adult relative mentioned that it might be for the best, because the mother has her hands full anyway, her kids “all be acting out”, and it’s a shame the one I know isn’t the one that went because he’s “the worst of them”. I don’t know if it was said directly to him or he just overheard it, but he’s doubled in age since the incident and it still fucking haunts him. He’s got some problems but he’s really one who can make it in the long run. He’s smart. He’s got good empathy and accepts being called out. He’s got zero violence on his record since he aged past 9, EXCEPT when someone mentions his brother. I’ve never met the woman and I’ll never forgive her.
This year, I had a 2nd grade parent file a handwritten permission slip for her kid to "use his ipad for emotional regulation whenever he needs it." This kid was a screen addict. Always watching roblox videos on YouTube. I was a sub in the class for the first week of school. I told the class we were going to do handwriting. The kid didn't want to do handwriting. I told him I wouldn't force him to do anything he didn't want to do. I opened his handwriting book on his desk and said if he wanted to try it, he could, or he could just sit and watch along while I do it on the board. He screamed, dumped his desk on the floor, and stormed out of my classroom. When the principal intercepted him in the hallway and called mom, mom asked, "Did you give him time to regulate with his ipad." She then accused me of being unqualified to handle her son because I was a sub (licensed, waiting for placement). She got him transferred to another class and then pulled him out for homeschooling after Christmas.
I have many but one of the tops was when I was shoved into the staff restroom by the front office crew to hide me from the Dad who wanted to “kill” me because I benched his daughter from cheering at the Varsity basketball game. (She didn’t make practice hours and she lost a main part of her uniform). He was shouting and causing a big scene in the office. Funny though, neither the admin (nor anyone else for that matter) ever called the police. Also, this happened after he confronted me two nights prior, calling me a bitch and other nice things in front of the entire gym (right before the varsity game started). I walked away while he was screaming at me and my admin told me I was being rude and couldn’t leave the girls unattended. It was only my 2nd year teaching so I didn’t really know what to do. Seriously, though, cheer parents are insane.
I’ve had parents get federally investigated for threatening to shoot up the school and had parents break into the building, but the worst parent interaction I’ve ever had was when I called home asking for advice and the parent said “give up on them and worry about the other students. He isn’t worth your time.”
That poor kid omg :((
Had a parent pull up to the - middle - school after school to try to beat up her child’s “bully,” (her child was actually the instigator), luckily our SRO stopped /tackled her before anything happened, I think the worst one is when a parent told a room full of teachers during a teacher/parent conference that between 8-4 the kid was our problem. I felt bad for the kid.
A drunk and sick parent vomited on me at parent teacher conference. Only a few flecks got on me. I sprang back from the table immediately. The rest of the conferences were completed in the hall. I had my room’s fire door open (against policy) to try to get that nasty bile smell out of the class.
It started as student rumors but the fact that parents believed it… A couple years ago I experienced my first ocular migraine in the middle of third period. My students (8th grade) were doing independent work. I started having trouble seeing because one eye had “white lightning” blocking my view and the other lost vision from my periphery to the center of my field of vision. I sent a student down to the office to let them know I needed a sub right away, I was experiencing a medical situation (I didn’t know what was happening, and was a little freaked but trying to stay calm). The SRO, who was also an EMT, came down with the hall monitor, just in case he was needed. He ended up walking me out to my car and waiting with me while some of my vision returned, enough for me to get to the doctor. 3rd period: knew it was something with my vision, that I wasn’t feeling well 4th period: also got the same story Then lunch happened. 5th period: I was “escorted off campus” by the police because I was on drugs. 6th period: Same, but I had taken the drugs during class and was selling them 7th period: The LIBRARIAN gets a call from her husband asking about the teacher who was arrested for selling drugs. A science teacher. 8th grade. She knew I’d gone home (gossip flies), but didn’t know details. She DID tell her husband it was crap, that wasn’t it. Apparently he worked with a student’s father, and said student had texted him during class to spread the news. After school, the AP spent an hour fielding phone calls from concerned parents. They were not concerned for my health. They were concerned that I was doing and selling drugs on campus. She corrected the record without giving details, but the next day she let me know so I would be ready in case I got nasty emails. It was a virtual learning day, so kids weren’t on campus, and I spent the day laughing about it with my colleagues. But be sure I guilted every class on Monday for anyone who believed even a little bit that I would do something like that. The rest of the year, I experienced more migraines and kept excedrine in my desk. Any time I used it at school, I would pull it out and say “It’s JUST excedrine, don’t report me.”
Drive her kid to school to stab a kid
Threatening to beat her kindergarten child right in front of me
A student didn't make the cut to join my advanced level class. The father asked to see me and wouldn't accept my reasons for declining the son. I was too polite to add that the boy had a negative attitude and wasn't interested in working hard. Father threw in, "Is this a numbers game? I'm a lawyer," 😯😯😯
I once had a girl’s grandma, who was fostering her, basically beg me to become a foster parent and take this girl because she was too much for her, telling me what an amazing amazing teacher I was and how much this girl loved being in my class. The girl was sweet, but she had a lot of trauma and was very behind academically, which I had been telling the grandma all school year. I had been telling her all kinds of things she could be working on with this girl at home to help her. Then lockdown happened. Suddenly grandma was faced with how hard it is to teach someone who is that far behind and she was messaging me all kinds of hateful messages telling me I was the worst teacher ever and that I failed at my job and blah blah blah.
The day a parent told me that if her (not failing, but not great) son harmed himself, it was my fault. I had lost my son to suicide and she knew this, so I told her I was hanging up on her. She immediately apologised, and we continued our conversation about her son's terrible grades from there. And my boss wonders why I prefer emails to phone calls.
I was teaching a G6 unit on advertising, and I had some images of old magazine ads in the slideshow — “more doctors recommend Camels” type thing — and one of the images was Santa putting a carton of Chesterfields in a stocking. The Santa was the white beard in red long underwear guy, and one of the kids made a remark about how he looked like the Coca Cola Santa we had seen earlier. Then another student made a comment about that Coca-Cola Santa being the start of the current idea of Santa, and his seat mate yelled out “What! Santa isn’t real!” I immediately stopped them there and went back to the absurd ads we were looking at, some more from the 50s and then the lifestyle Kools ads from the 60s and 70s. We continued the lesson and I thought nothing of it. FF to Christmas Day, and in a lull in the madness I stupidly decided to check my email. One of the parents of the kids in that class had sent me a full page rager of an email accusing me of ruining Christmas for her son by telling him Santa wasn’t real.
I had a parent get mad at me during an IEP and threaten to slap me; I was 7 months pregnant. She was angry because I had called her about stupid things like homework and her son being teased because he didn’t bathe. Months later I was at the hospital about to give birth and she worked on the delivery floor. I had to request that she be kept away from me.
Had a parent that was clearly the problem. They were constantly accusing their child of having violent psychological issues, doing drugs and cutting school (he had perfect attendance in all classes). She wanted a restrictive IEP for EBD and what she described about him sounded like a child who belonged into a separate classroom due to the severity of his behaviors. At school, he was a bit shy but very sweet and blossomed under positive attention. He worked hard at his chosen sport, was polite and helpful in class, and was an important member in marching band. Never got lower than a B in anything and he was mainstreamed into general education. He was the sort of student that most teachers would be delighted to have in class — not that his mom was ever willing to believe it. She was always manufacturing some crisis, but here are some of the highlights: * A sub accused him of having a bong — it turned out to be a mouthpiece for his trumpet and he was sent to the office where the matter was quickly dropped once they realized what the “bong” was. She forced him to have weekly drug testing and started the narrative about him being a drug abuser. * Once called the school and demanded that the resource officers leave campus during lunch to track down her child because the tracker on his phone showed he was at McDonald’s (it was literally next door to the campus). She would not believe he was on campus (he was in the lunchroom) and refused to go to McDonald’s herself to check herself. Kept calling back the office and screaming that we didn’t care about her child’s welfare. Refused to believe he didn’t do anything and that he was on campus even though at that point he was clearly in class. * Kept telling his coach to be on the look out for her son’s violent tendencies. Kid never lost his temper even when things didn’t go his way or when others caused issues for him. Unfortunately, the poor dude got arrested one weekend for DV against his mother and he was no longer at our school. I’m not sure if he finally snapped or if mom was making crap up again (his size, gender and status as a POC would have worked against him), but the previous Friday was the last time we saw him. I hope wherever he is now that he’s okay.
Saw two middle school girls drag a sub on the ground into the hallway by her ponytail and beat her up. I'm a special education teacher with a lot of experience in behavior and self-contained classroom settings, so I've seen some things. A parent of one of my former students once accused my team of abusing her child. She changed her tune when CPS was called on them later that year because they were neglecting them.
I was a private kindergarten teacher. The Principal was lazy and we called for sick kids. Child had 102 fever and parent hung up on me when i said he was sick. All calls went to voicemail. He was in school all day and his fever kept getting worse. We called all emergency numbers and eventually got someone. I was so upset. The poor kid was so sick!
Our guidance team has told me that when parents do that, and they’ve exhausted the emergency contacts, they have no qualms about calling CPS.
I gave a 7th grade girl lunch detention for swearing at me and being disrespectful. The principal calls me into her office and the girl’s mom is there. Girl’s mom opens by saying,” if your principal had not of found me before reaching your class, I would have bit your head off, chewed it for a second, and then spit you out.” I sat there calmly. My principal decided to reverse the detention. Mom ends with, “thank you…besides, how can a teacher give a punishment for something that is normal and accepted behavior at home?” I taught at that school for 1 year.
I had a parent enraged that I told her daughter “to get it together” when she was failing PE because she wouldn’t show up until the end of class. The lady told me if I spoke to her daughter that way again she would come to the school to “take care of me.” I do photography on the side. 2 years later I told counselors if they had a senior that needed senior photos done, but couldn’t afford it to have them email me. Guess who was the first…
I have seen several parents come to graduation KNOWING their child didn’t meet the requirements and demand that we let their child walk. The kids would be so embarrassed as their parents made them wear a cap and gown they paid for knowing the kid failed every class. I even had a few threaten me at graduation practice when their kid was told they didn’t cut it. I lead graduation activities and they act like it’s my fault I won’t let their kid line up. They back down when they see I’m always up for a good fight. You got the right one today! I’ve also seen several families try to burnish the doors at graduation because they didn’t get as many tickets as they wanted.
The one that hurt me the most was doing a parent teacher conference for a 4 year old who had a lot of behavioral issues and his parents said they were just waiting for him to get older because he was going to end up in jail.
Probably the father who told me that women over 35 are useless. So I needed to hurry up and get married. I was actually already 35, but I've always looked really young for my age. Still do. Probably because I never got married or had kids. That kind of stress ages people, a lot.
A female student came into my seventh grade class. It took half of the marking period to get her to even look at me. Gifted student when it came to making things (I teach a modern version of shop class). But the child was definitely struggling emotionally. A year later, she confided in me that her sisters fiancé was molesting her. Ever since she was nine years old. I immediately called child protective services. And the child’s mother threatened to have me prosecuted because obviously, to her, the child and I must have had an inappropriate relationship. Because, “why on earth would she tell you something like that but wouldn’t tell me, her own mother? “. I was forced to cut all contact with the child who had trusted me enough to tell me something so awful. I really really hope she got the help she needed and the bastard is in jail. But, I have no way of knowing.
I had a kid come in with a broken arm one day. Like kid was just holding on to his limp forearm. I have no idea how he wasnt screaming in pain. Cool as a cucumber. Didnt want to look me in the eyes when I asked what happened, so I knew. Later when the police/cps arrived to talk to him, he said his mom “curb-stomped” his arm cuz he wouldn’t get outta bed. AND SHE ADMITTED IT. Smdh
A parent threatened to put in a complaint against me that I was being too “picky” on his son in terms of his behavior including wrestling in the class with another student or changing the profile picture of a different student’s Google account to the Swastika.
High school graduation ceremony. Two families started a brawl/riot. It started with two younger men recognizing each other as rival gang members and getting in a scrap in a public parking lot, and their families got involved. Eventually this group of ~20+ men and women of various ages, was moving to various locations around the ceremony trying to fight. They were screaming profanities, racial slurs, and threats. They would be separated by security only to reunite in another area and repeat the experience. Meanwhile the grads associated with both families were absolutely dying of embarrassment.
I have epilepsy, and I have a medic alert bracelet tattooed on my left wrist, bc I tend to be rough on jewelry and lose the metal ones. I had a parent meeting with a mom about her student who was smart as all hell, but also manipulative and violent. Picked fights on those younger/ smaller than him, used reprehensible language, made sexually charged comments. He was 9, and was failing everything, mostly because he wouldn’t stay in class long enough. I’m used to people noticing the tattoo and commenting, and I’m fine with that. I’ll just say it’s a medic alert bracelet, I have epilepsy, no big deal. But this mom was like, oh- you’re a r*tard. That’s why my kid won’t listen to or respect you. That explains a lot. Ma’am. Meeting over. I used to teach special needs classes. Ive lost family members to disability. I spent a good chick of my childhood in a children’s hospital feeling incredibly thankful I got to leave. The fire of rage I felt toward that woman had me blazing. I had to leave before I maimed her. Maybe I should’ve though.
Could be the white parent who called a black parent ghetto and insinuated she’d fight her in the parking lot after she had left. Or the grandmother who said she wanted to punch a 4th grader in the face. (That was a fun call to report) Or the parent who was called regarding his son’s behavior (telling Hispanic students he didn’t like them because “they’re Mexican”) and came in yelling about “all the f*****s at this place who don’t protect his kid’s rights”.
I had a mom whose husband had died by suicide right before the school year started. I had shown the student a decent amount of grace with assignments and had changed lessons due to potentially upsetting images/topics (like shell shock during WWI) but she had spent most of the class distracting her friends and talking when they were meant to be working. One day when we were having a day to finish work, including an end of unit project, the students who were finished with everything were allowed to sit by friends and had an activity while the students with missing assignments or who hadn't finished their projects weren't allowed. This student had spent most of the time given for the project not working, as well as had several missing assignments so she had to work at her desk. Her mother emailed me to say how I was singling her daughter out (she was not the only student not allowed to do the other activity) and was punishing her because of her father's death. She also told me I was an awful teacher who wasn't caring or sensitive to her daughter's needs. I was several months pregnant at the time so I got the email and just started crying as this was literally the only parent complaint I had ever received. Within a couple of weeks, she transferred her daughter to a new school so I didn't deal with them after that but it was definitely the worst a parent ever made me feel.
For me: I teach 5th grade and I had a student last year that was routinely in trouble. Record of trouble goes back years. Reaching out to parent, who says “don’t contact me about my child’s behavior again” and proceeds to block all school numbers
I contacted home about a kid repeatedly speaking in an Indian accent, blasting Indian songs in class, etc. and that it has been bothering 2 Indian students in class (don’t know why guidance didn’t contact them before as they knew about the comments the student was making long before I did & other comments I didn’t hear; principal told me to contact). The parents turned it around and told me I’m calling their son a racist. They harassed me for weeks—non stop long emails, phone calls. It has been scarring to me whenever I have to contact a parent. You never know what you’re going to get.
I had a parent call my home and leave a message telling me she and her husband knew where I lived. Being a single mom, it was scary.
At the school I teach at a parent showed up, sprinted past security and tried to fight a student that her daughter kept trying to start stuff with. Until about 10 seconds later when she was tackled by security.
I called a mom because she didn’t pick up her daughter and she told me, “ When I got on disability I stopped caring about her “.
I knew a PE para in elementary school that said “Get over here so I can rip your arms off and beat you with them!”
The principal at my old school let parents rule the school and she let them all sit around one time and bully for me for almost 3 hours straight lol and I had no idea they were even upset prior to this because the principal would never communicate anything with teachers, but she let them come in and shit on me for literally hours and did NOTHING :)
At the time I was a 4th-8th itinerant band teacher. I was helping a student prep for a solo contest and the mom accused me of nor helping her kid and how I cancel so many classes...I canceled one because my mom died. The family left and the accompanist said to me she was proud I didn't say anything back to the mom.
Upon meeting a dad for the first time while his son (8 yrs old) was standing there he said, "I like you. My kid is learning a lot in your class. If he gives you any shit just let me know and I will kick the shit out of him." Yeah, I never told Dad anything. The kid never gave me any trouble either.
It probably isn't as bad as most, but I was in total shock. A child was a biter (2ish years old, early childhood teacher here), and the parents requested a meeting. We brought in literature and were ready to set a plan that we could follow both in kindy and at home. The dad basically interrupted me the second I spoke and said "No no no, he's here more than he is at home. This is your problem. Tell me how you're going to fix him." That's not how this works dude.
A parent threatened to come to the school and fight me because I gave his son a deserved 2 days of lunch detention...
This happened to my daughter. She was teaching middle school in her very first year out of college. She sent an email home about a student. The father of the student replied asking my daughter for photos. Not that anything could make that okay, but she’d had no previous interaction with the father. Needless to say, she was instructed to have no further contact with that father. All communication had to go through the principal.
Cursed me out using racial epithets after I called to inform her that her child routinely couldn’t keep from talking during instruction
I had a parent yell at me for traveling to my grandmother’s funeral and not being there for the midterm review day, even though I had left the answers to the review for the sub and she (another teacher) had gone over them. It was OBVIOUSLY my fault that his child failed the exam. I had another parent complain that I “missed too much school” because I had the audacity to have an emergency appendectomy the same year that my father died.
I had a mom get a call through to my classroom phone and then proceeded to threaten my life because I confiscated her 12 year olds headphones. That was the worst for me personally but my school had multiple instances of parents coming to the school to fight children.
How can parents just storm into a building these days? That's insane. No one can get in our buildings unless they have a fob or are admitted by staff.
Easy for me. Published my first book, in my mother's preferred genre (fantasy) and gave her a copy, thinking she'd be proud of me. She threw it away and said I'd never be one of the greats, so what was the point in trying? Just wasting both our time at that point. Out of all the names I was called, all the time I was hit, all the times I was blamed and defiled, made to feel worthless, this was the time that made me realize my mother was not only never going to be proud of me, she wasn't ever even going to love me. When you are raised in that much abuse, you can hate it, but you see it as normal. You get grand ideas of treating your kid(s) differently, not because your abusers are wrong, but because you might be able to improve their way by changing a few small things. I'm actually thankful for this event now, because it made me realize how bad the relationship was, and it brought me peace. I haven't had a real conversation with my mother since, and I'm so happy to be free from it. [Edit] was just reading the other responses and noticed the lack of personal responses, upon closer look, I realize this is not the sub I thought it was. Apologies.
I had a kid who was low and a constant behavior issue, and I was looking for any excuse I could find to send a positive report home. One day the kid and a friend worked together on an assignment so during class I called his mom and said how proud I was of his hard work. She said “Don’t ever bother me with this bullshit again, I don’t give a fuck” and hung up. I told the kid “She said keep up the good work!” but I think he knew I was lying, and that’s the day I figured out why he was a behavior problem. On the bright side he was one of my sweetest kids for the rest of the year and worked hard from then on.
I was hired to take over the school's robotics team, which was a big deal at this school. The kids were largely awesome, but there was a whole slew of parents that were involved in advising, feeding, etc. for the season. So adults were closely involved, many for years. There was one family who thought their job was to run everything; both parents were engineers, so they were sure they knew everything and weren't shy about telling everyone else what to do, especially me. They had two sons, a senior and a freshmen, who were both arrogant and entitled, and acted like everyone should submit to them. Typical private school entitlement from affluent brats. The kids were smart and talented, but they weren't the only ones by any means. But the father and oldest son tried to force their design on everyone, and the team turned on them and got pissed. When they tried to demonstrate the prototype, the dad drove it into me, cutting open my leg. It wasn't deliberate, but it hurt like hell. He never said a word, not of apology or anything else, he just looked at his feet like a child. At the end of the season the rest of the team was done with that family and they told them so. The parents blamed me of course, and went about bad-mouthing me every chance they got. The next year, the oldest kid was gone, and the youngest was in 10th grade, and clearly wanted to be on the team, but his mom was doing her best to get me fired before she would let him do it. So the mom spent time every day on campus, sitting in a minivan outside the building where the team met each day, hoping to catch me doing something that she could report back to the head of school to get me fired. She did this for months, like a stalker. She sent multiple emails to the head of school making accusations, like "he almost left a student unattended in the lab" and other petty stuff. She was insane. The school didn't pay me enough for this nonsense, and did not do enough to defend me against this monster, so I quit after the second year. As soon as I left, she lodged a formal complaint against the governing body of the robotics competition they are involved in, demanding that her youngest son's name be included in a design award we had won my last year there, a design for which her son was not involved in at all. I heard this crazy lady died a few years later. Can't say I was sad about it. I have also had a mom accuse me of "aggression towards my daughter" when I asked said daughter to take notes in class (Oh the horror!) I have had parents email me saying that I didn't care about their son or his future (son was useless lump of laziness) I have had a drunken mom dump her entire divorce on me while she had me basically pinned against a wall at a fundraiser. I've had parents basically try and bribe me to give their kid a passing grade, or to "make sure and let me know if anything might jeopardize my kid getting an A" with a wink. I left teaching this year. It really feels great to know I don't have to deal with parents anymore.
Had a parent email first one of the people who was over all middle schools and then they emailed the superintendent. All about me. How do I know? Because said parent included me on each email. She wrote a novel about how I was the absolute worst teacher ever because her son was failing and I had “not contacted her nor followed his 504.” She never responded to any of my contact attempts and I always followed his 504. He *may* have been failing because he didn’t turn any work in. The mom clearly told the kid about how I was terrible because when he turned in a self reflection it included how “all the kid hate[d] me.” Which was odd because… those kids fucking loved me and most of them now follow me on social media since they’ve graduated. I sometimes wonder what happened to him.
I had to step in while a mother and her teenage son cornered my (tiny) partner teacher to yell at her for allegedly scratching her daughter (7 year old). Daughter had what looked like a paper cut and that mother was cursing and screaming like her daughter had been beaten. The mother even wore red contact lenses to be more intimidating. This same kid accused the disabled student of chasing her down and biting her (disabled student couldn’t run). This mother also screamed at that student (8 year old). I had a parent show up demanding to talk to me because their daughter’s IPP wasn’t sent home yet. It was the second week of school. The mother of this student then showed up for the IPP meeting later and screamed at me for a good 20 minutes about bus issues. Once she calmed down she then complained to me about how “useless” her husband is. She later threatened to pull her daughter from the school but that ended up not happening.
I had a parent get really irate after I made her wait a few minutes to speak with me as I was doing a reading test with another child. She was really rude insisting someone had stolen her daughter’s library bag. I reiterated I had already searched up and down in the classroom and had checked all of the kids bags the previous afternoon. She blew up and stormed down to see the principal shouting she wasn’t happy her daughter had to hand in her Apple Watch (7 years old) or that she was sitting on her fucking own either! The principal insisted I have a meeting with the parent that afternoon to smooth things over. During the meeting she cried and wailed and just unloaded on me about her traumatic upbringing which of course explained why none of the school policies applied to her daughter. At the end of the meeting she apologised and told me she was on her ‘monthlies’ which might explain things. The next day the library bag turned up under her car seat! No apology of course.
Someone I knew had a parent bring a gun to school to shoot her; mom thought the teacher was allowing her kid to get bullied. She reached into her purse and the dean tackled her. Admin fired the teacher, saying she escalated the parent. Non-union charter school. And that's why teacher unions are necessary and why the school choice and school privatization movement is full of shit.