You'd think teachers would only have to teach their students how to behave. However, that's sadly not the case with these insane parents and their bizarre requests.
(Content has been edited for clarity).
You Don’t Need A High School Diploma To Go To College, Right?
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“My brother is a high school teacher: He had one kid that was early accepted into the college of his choice and decided that his entire senior year could then be the F’yall year.
My brother had multiple conversations with the parents throughout the year about the fact that student was failing, as did other teachers. Parents seemed very unconcerned by this.
The day before classes ended, my brother runs into the father out in public and the father says to him ‘I am very concerned about (the students), really – I think his school performance this year doesn’t bode well for how he will do in college.’
My brother: Your son is not going to college. He has to repeat at least 5 classes this year in order to get his diploma.
Father: No, he’s fine, he is already accepted.
My brother: It’s all conditional. Without his high school diploma – which we have been telling you all year he is not going to get – he can’t get in.
The father – who has a college degree himself – was apparently shocked by this news, and they promptly went right to the School Board, trying to get his entire senior waived ‘because he was obviously such a strong student that a school accepted him on early admission.’ School Board did not agree.”
“Some People Just Don’t Know How To Do Their Jobs!”
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“A parent called to complain that I hadn’t put her daughter’s late homework into the grade book yet. I told her ‘I can’t put the homework in the grade book until she actually turns it in.’
This parent just kept asking me why I hadn’t put it in. I kept replying with ‘I have nothing to put in! She hasn’t given it to me!’
Finally, the call ended with ‘Urg, some people just don’t know how to do their jobs!'”
She Put In C-Worthy Effort But Still Wanted More Than A B+
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“I had a girl in an honor’s class. She earned a B+. Mother asked if she could be bumped up. In cases where it’s pretty darn close to an A, I consider it, but she was at the low end of a B+. At the end of the semester, she changes classes and is now in the same class with a different teacher (she didn’t ask to be transferred, that’s just how her schedule happened to work out).
I get an e-mail two months later from the parent telling me how much better the review packets are that the other teacher gives, and how the other teacher spreads apart the test dates to be more comfortable for the students, and that the student was doing so much better in the other class. She asked again if I could change the grade to an A.
Those would be valid criticisms…if it were not for the fact that I give the exact same reviews as the other teacher, and we schedule tests on the exact same day. And on top of that, I asked what the student currently had. B+.”
Not Even A Fellow Teacher Would Give Them A Break About Their Kid’s Grades
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“One of my students was the child of a coworker. Both were huge pains in the behind.
Coworker mother stormed into the class after school to complain that her son had earned a C+ or B- (can’t remember) on a homework assignment the week before. She was upset that I hadn’t contacted her. I explained that I always immediately entered grades into a system that parents had access to online. Parents could view grades, the school calendar, etc. The school employee who maintained the site? HER. So she knew how to use it.
Co-worker mother demanded that I contact her personally whenever her son made less than an A and got upset when I said that I wouldn’t. I told her I didn’t have the time (I had the work of two teachers). An email wouldn’t take long for me to send, but I didn’t want to give myself yet another thing to remember, then risk getting chewed out for forgetting, and risk all the other parents wanting the same useless courtesy. I said I’d contact her if I noticed a trend of slipping grades, which wasn’t the issue with her son. His grades were great overall.
This ticked her off to no end. I said that accessing the site took the same number of clicks it’d take to access an email about the grade, so there was no point. She cried, yelled, and kept pushing and threatened to take this to the principal, who was her best friend. I finally said that if I could keep track of all the grades for the three grade levels I taught, surely she could handle keeping track of grades for one kid.
Just one incident of many with my beady-eyed witch of a co-worker.”
This Teacher Should’ve Been Fired For… Using The Wrong Shade Of Red?
“One day, a parent questioned the color of the red pen I use. Apparently, it’s too dark of a red to be considered red, and if I can’t do my job properly using the correct red, I’m unqualified to teach.”
This Professor Couldn’t Believe Their Brightest Student Came From The Trashiest Mother
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“I had a screaming parent in my office because of a marginal comment I made on an essay that had received a grade of 95%, submitted by a student who was top of the class.
The comment said, and I’m paraphrasing here, ‘This argument is unworthy of you. Don’t be lazy: find better sources and don’t hang your argument on idle assertions.’
The parent claimed I had called her daughter ‘lazy, idle, fat, suicidal, and unworthy of being a student at [INSTITUTION].’ She actually thought I was threatening to have her expelled, or at least barred from grad school.
The best part: the girl was a second-year undergraduate.
The next best part: it was an open office, and my colleagues were openly mocking her the entire time. I just sat there and said nothing. I miss those guys.
Just to be clear because of potential pronoun confusion, the female student had no problem with the comment, was absolutely mortified by what her mother had done, and seriously concerned that the interference would damage her academic career. I just laughed and told her I was even more impressed that she’d emerged intelligent and sane from a home environment like that, then asked if she needed any letters of reference. She did, and she got them. Her mother got a vaguely insulting note and a small tray of milk chocolates.”
This Mom Was The Grinch That Ruined Christmas
“I did a class secret Santa with my choir. Before they were allowed to draw names they had to bring back a signed form from parents promising that they will actually buy the other child a gift. This is 8th grade.
One girl didn’t buy a gift. I called the parents, twice. Both times a mother told me in a worried voice that didn’t inspire confidence that yes, of course, she would get a gift, etc.
She never did, so one kid in the class who signed up never got a gift. Her mother went absolutely BALLISTIC. Called me, called my principal, insisted that we had to MAKE this parent go get her child a gift. I had already planned to go out and buy her child a gift with my own meager salary, but she told me I wasn’t allowed to do so because I had to make this other parent do it.
I told her I cannot drive to this other parent’s house, drag her to the mall, and force her to buy a gift. I simply can’t. It’s out of my hands. My admin backed me up. She continued to rail at me for another week.
I stopped doing secret Santa after that.”
Her Point System Backfired Real Quick Because Of This Insane Dad
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“The school my wife teaches at a school that uses ClassDojo. It does a lot of different things but it is essentially a behavioral control system. She can give kids points for doing the right thing and can take away points if they do the wrong thing. The parents who sign up for notifications get them sent straight to their phone or computer.
She had one student this year who was refusing to do work and was being disrespectful to the student teacher. She was basically telling the student teacher that she wasn’t really a teacher and that she (the student) didn’t have to listen to her (the student teacher). My wife overheard what was going on and took away a point for disrespect.
The girl’s parents came in the next day and the dad was demanding that my wife change the disrespectful point. He didn’t mind that his daughter lost a point, but he was ticked off that she lost a point for being disrespectful. He told her that a 7-year-old isn’t capable of disrespect and insisted that this was going to ruin her chances at getting into Stanford because they would see her as a disrespectful person. My wife explained that this information is simply a way to track behavior and communicate with the parents. It has nothing to do with a permanent record. It’s just an app. The dad continued to demand that it be changed and my wife eventually relented. She changed it to a ‘refusal to work’ point instead. I’m not sure if Stanford thinks being lazy is better than being disrespectful, but the dad seemed to think so.”
Not Everyone Can Be A Winner
“I dread ‘awards day’ as an elementary school teacher. I had a parent complain that her child did not get an ‘academic award.’ I made sure that every child got something- whether it be for an academic subject (like reading, writing, math, social studies, science) or for their awesome personality. I can’t remember what her child got, but it was one of these personality awards.
He was a very cheerful, sweet kid. But, she said that this award sent the message that academics weren’t important or that he wasn’t smart. With over 120 kids in that grade level, it was impossible to give everyone an academic award. He had a chance to win an academic award, for example, if you read over a certain amount of books, you’d win a reading award. But, you actually had to keep track of that at home and turn the paper back into me, which he did not. So… I’ll just say that wasn’t the first time she had complained about something petty that year.”
If Only The Parents Believed The Teacher Rather Than Their Bratty Child
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“My sister is a high school teacher and she told me this wild story once. A kid who was often a troublemaker stole a computer from the school and then ran away from home for a few days (she doesn’t teach in a very good neighborhood so these stories are common). After about a week the kid came back and the faculty sent him to the principal’s office.
They were trying to get the kid to admit he stole the laptop because they knew he did but had no evidence to press charges. Once the kid goes home at the end of the day the kid tells his dad that during his meeting with the principal, THAT THE PRINCIPAL BEAT HIM. The dad is one of those parents that believes their child is perfect so he goes to the school furious and doesn’t believe a word from the faculty. I’m pretty sure it ended up with the kid getting expelled for something else he did a few months later, but still a crazy story.”
It’s A Miracle She Continued Being A Teacher
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“My sister is a teacher and she always has good parent stories:
A parent complained about the kids sitting in reverse alphabetical order z-a instead of a-z (Their daughter shouldn’t have to sit in the back of the room!)
A parent complained about midterm grades getting posted right before the kids had a week off for spring break (Their son had done poorly and now it looks like they are rewarding him by taking him to Disney)
A parent complained about their daughter not being allowed to get a copy of the midterm test to take at home because they were going to be spending 2 weeks in Aruba. (My daughter won’t CHEAT!)
A parent was upset that they couldn’t have uber eats deliver their son lunch every day (You don’t expect him to eat Obama food!)
The letters that come from the administration office all are addressed ‘To the Parents or Guardians of’ then the student’s name. One woman wanted hers changed to ‘To the Parent of’ because she was getting divorced.
One complained the homework load was overwhelming. The kids had been assigned one project that they had 3 weeks to finish and were given 10 minutes at the end of each class to do it. The project was to make a trifold pamphlet about the dangers of a substance abuse. Most kids finished it in 2 days.”
These Parents Went Above And Beyond To Make Their Son Wouldn’t Get Hurt Again
“The school where I work is quite a posh school with a lot of kids coming from very well to do families. Two boys got into a very typical sort of collision during a PE lesson where they were playing soccer. Nothing malicious or out of the ordinary, but one kid got a fractured shoulder as a result of it. The months that followed resulted in all sorts of ridiculous crap instigated by the kid’s parents.
They asked the homeroom teacher to make an announcement to the class that was basically along the lines of, ‘Our son has an injury but that’s not because he’s weak, ok?’ There were numerous requests by the parents to the school to remove soccer from the curriculum and ban kids from playing soccer on school grounds, and the worst were the attempts to get compensation from the school and then ultimately they tried to sue the school. Even stupider was the fact that at least one of this kid’s parents was a doctor.
We often see petty crap from students and parents, but this was the icing on the cake that made it hard for me not to think sometimes that the rich really do need a bit of a reality check at times.”
This Mom Didn’t Understand The True Definition Of “A Good Deed”
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“At my school, we do this thing called ‘Lion Hearts.’ They’re slips of paper that you give to a kid when you catch them doing something good of their own volition (and not SEEKING any type of attention or reward). When you get one, you write your name on it and put it in a big raffle box to hopefully win a prize.
We had a mom just before Christmas break fuming because her child was the only kid in his class that had not gotten a Lion Heart yet ‘and he has brought four very expensive toys for the toy drive’ that the whole school was participating in.
We had to explain to her that that’s not how that works and if he wanted a Lion Heart, maybe he should do some good deeds.”
The Reason For This Kid’s Constant Lying Just Didn’t Add Up
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“My second year teaching, I had a kid I’ll call D. D had a twin brother at school too. D was super misbehaved and was always trying to find a way to get people, including his teachers, in trouble with outrageous lies. Like seriously crazy lies like Mrs. X grabbed me by the throat and slammed me against the desk (he pulled this gem on a friend of mine the year before despite the teacher having a co-teacher and a room full of other students in the room that all said the teacher bumped into him when she was walking backwards and then grabbed him to keep him from falling over).
That year, I got engaged over Christmas break. A few kids noticed my ring, and I told them my happy news. D went home and told his mom that my boyfriend came and proposed to me in front of his class and we started making out inappropriately. His mom called the office and told my principal off and said that Ms. Aualum needs to keep her business at home and I was being inappropriate blah blah blah. My principal asked if that happened, I said no, of course, and told him I got engaged over the break, so he called us in for a conference. During the conference we heard the following explanation for D’s lie: he was psychic and had a vision about the engagement. His mom had the nerve to say that D was psychic and was gifted and had visions like that all the time. I was dumbstruck. She then went on to say that D and his brother were skipped 2 grades and that was the reason for their immaturity; they were the same age, actually slightly older than the other kids in their class. She spouted off much more nonsense, but I was too busy trying to keep from laughing. My principal dismissed me after a while of this nonsense more and told me later she spouted off a whhhooolllleee lot of other crazy mess and that it was the craziest parent conference in the entirety of his 27-year career.”
Middle School Is Hard For The Teachers Too
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“I’ve been teaching 6th grade for 15 years now and have had my share of ridiculous parents. Here’s a few stories:
A mom demanded that her daughter get a part in the upcoming Christmas play or she would withdraw her. The daughter did get a major supporting role, but not the main role. Still, she would have a decent share of lines, but that wasn’t good enough for her mother. Her mother came up to me as we were dismissing school one day and demanded why I didn’t make her daughter the ‘star.’ As she was complaining at me, her daughter, who was with her, literally told her to STFU right to her face. The look on the mom’s face was priceless. The daughter ended up dropping out of the play and had to be replaced. No, the mom did not withdraw her daughter.
One kid had two dads and a couple of parents demanded that I place him in a different class or something because they were afraid that his dads’ ‘gayness’ would ‘rub off’ on him, then them. Naturally, I and the principal refused.
This one boy I had had crazy Christian Fundamentalist parents. I mean, they were NUTS. Told me that I needed to dress ‘modestly’ when teaching (I don’t even have any long dresses), didn’t let him go to school on Halloween, complained that I was showing the kids ‘Satanic magic’ and teaching them witchcraft when I let them watch Aladdin, and, of course, objected to most science. More than once did they threaten to pull him out and put him in a Christian school, but never did follow through for some reason.
Made a kid stay in at recess for misbehavior and his mother called me and yelled at me for ‘ruining his free time.'”
Instead Of Grading The Students, This Teacher Ended Up Grading The Parents
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“I spent the better part of a few years working for a company that put filmmakers in elementary schools to teach film.
This company was the worst, sent us in with outdated equipment, and above all valued the idea of ‘do whatever it takes to make sure the company made money, even if kids didn’t learn much or you have to tell some lies.’
I was a genuinely nice person to the kids, and teachers, and got requested a lot because of how much knowledge I seemed to have (was also a working filmmaker, and most of their employees were people without any film background). The unfortunate thing was that the company organizers would sell ‘day-long lessons’ like claymation to Grade 1 classes, which was always a really bad day guaranteed (at that age, kids just want to play with the clay rather than make an animation). And at that age, a lot of parents would love to come in as help, but of course, that meant they never left their own child’s side and because they considered themselves to be smart, not pay attention to the lesson on how claymation or the programs the kids will be using worked. So we had very controlling parents not let their own kids do the work when they didn’t know how to do the work themselves. They would also get annoyed when I didn’t drop everything I was doing (including helping other kids), to help theirs.
This was my favorite scenario. When parents would take over their own kids project, fail miserably at it, and then try to blame me for not delivering a good lesson. This happened often, parents would demand that I stayed in on my lunch to walk them through step-by-step, the entire 45-minute lesson I give in the mornings. The parents would say things like ‘as a teacher, it’s your duty, etc.’ These were always the parents who would be talking through the lesson as I taught. I had one parent show up halfway through the day and didn’t let their kid progress until they themselves understood everything. So they stopped their kid from working so I could give them a private lesson. I took joy in saying, ‘I’m not a teacher, if you have an issue with me you can call the company that pays me while I go grab a coffee’ and then walked out of the classroom. I knew that the company saw me as someone who brought in business for them, and anyone complaining about me usually had some unjustified reason or another. This isn’t me thinking too highly of myself, I was just a pleasant person within the schools until someone was being a jerk to me. Even then I’d still smile.
The job I worked was a weird one, I was always reminded that I wasn’t a teacher at the school, I didn’t get the same breaks as them during the day, I got paid nowhere near as well as the teachers (Ontario, Canada), and most days I was brought in as a babysitter with a mild lesson play because a teacher needed a day of marking. I respected teachers, but they didn’t respect me. The second I walked through the door lugging a bunch of broken MacBooks from 2006 (companies fault), they tuned out and told me to holler if I needed any help. So I enjoyed the moments when I got to say to a parent, or even one of the kids ‘I’m not the teacher.’
I’d also like to mention that if I ever saw a kid who was trying really hard, but was genuinely having difficulty, I always went above and beyond to help. There was a reason why I was doing this in the first place- I wasn’t getting paid well by the company but there was a few of us who worked for them and tried our best to teach the basics of film and animation, cause at that age we never had anything like that when growing up.”