Stupid Parent Tricks

Sometimes I have to remind myself that I teach in a public school so I deal with people at all levels of intelligence and education. All levels.

This means that sometimes we get parents who not only don't have a clue, but wouldn't have one if we put a handle on one and made it easy to carry.

Case in point.

A parent calls up to set up an appointment to meet with the team to discuss his child. One of The Secretaries takes the call and pulls out our team calendar and lets The Parent know that we could meet with him during our planning period (our only free time during the school day) at 7:40 am. This is not good with The Parent. The only time that is convenient for him is 1:30 in the afternoon so it will have to be then.

"I'm sorry," says The Secretary, "but they are teaching class at that time, so they won't be able to meet with you."

"You don't understand," says The Parent, "but that's the only time I can possibly meet with them."

"But they have students with them at that time. They can't just leave their classes to talk with you then."

"They can't?"

The Secretary nearly falls out of her chair at this one. She finally convinces him that if he can make it at 2:20, we can meet with him right after school for a few minutes before two of us have to head off to another meeting. He finally agrees to this, but still doesn't understand why 1:30 wasn't good.

I suppose we could have talked to him at 1:30. But that would have met leaving 120 seventh graders unattended for a while. And that, my friends, is a very, scary thing to do.