I know that people will sometimes surprise you, but if you work a job like a school teacher, I imagine that gets harder and harder to do.
OP is an administrator at a school where students can live close by, or far away. Because of this, they have a policy where talks with parents and such can be done over the phone if in person is too hard.
I used to work as an administrator in a secondary school in the US (Grades 9-12) around 10 years ago. We were a school that didn’t have a specific “zone” or neighborhood, so to speak.
Some of our students lived 30 or 45 minutes from the school, which made it necessary for us to sometimes conduct business with parents or guardians over the phone as opposed to in person.
She had a senior who wanted to drop a hard class he wasn’t feeling. He didn’t want the drag on his GPA while applying to colleges.
One day I met with a Senior (Grade 12) who was in a class that he and his father had deemed too hard for him, and since they didn’t want it impacting his ability to attend college, asked for him to be changed out of the class.
OP talked to his dad, who was authorized on his forms, and allowed him to drop the class.
It was early in the semester, and there was plenty of space available in other courses, so I had no problem doing it after a conversation over the phone with his father.
The student was a good guy, and he was totally grateful to me for helping him out. He would now get to enjoy his last year a little more, with one less difficult class to worry about.
That unfortunately wasn’t the end of it, though, because OP got a call from the student’s mother demanding he be put back in the class.
The next day, I get a phone call in my office from mom, who is irate. She spends approximately five minutes berating me about changing his schedule.
I indicated to her that dad was on the contact list for her son, and he was allowed to make these decisions if he chose to do so. She is the person who put dad on there several years before.
She apparently had forgotten to take dad off the authorized list after their divorce, and how did OP even know she was talking to her kid’s dad anyway, since it was all done over the phone?
Evidently, mom put dad on the list before their divorce. She had raised the child over the last several years by herself (according to her), and she should make all of the decisions.
I didn’t know this, and the records didn’t reflect it. Since she knew this argument wasn’t going to work, the next objection was against our policy of making decisions over the phone. The conversation went something like this:
Mom: “How do you know for sure it was his dad on the phone? There’s no way you can be sure. I can’t believe you would ever make a decision like this without a parent present. By doing business over the phone, you could be speaking to anyone.”
She continued on and I tried to explain that it is necessary at times to use the phone, since parents work in another town and may have to travel an hour or more to get to the school. Well, she wasn’t buying it.
OP jumped on that, saying the woman was right and they shouldn’t have serious talks like that over the phone anymore.
So finally, I relented. “Ma’am, you are right. I will no longer make decisions like this over the phone. I am going to insist parents come in and meet with me in person.”
Which meant that if mom wanted her kid back in the class, she would need to come in to sign the forms.
Mom: “Good. Now I need my son to be put back into the class he was in originally.”
Me: “Ma’am, I’m sorry. You are going to have to come in and meet with me. I’m no longer changing schedules over the phone. How do I know you are this student’s mother?”
Mom: “I can’t do that. I live 45 minutes from the school, and I work every day.”
The matter suddenly wasn’t all that important.
It was at this point she dropped all of her objections.
The top comment calls it “instant non-gratification.”
They say it’s perfect enough to be a comedy sketch.
This person thinks they know exactly what sort of person Mom is.
And this commenter thinks it’s straight delicious.
Some wondered why the parents needed to sign off at all.
I love stories of teachers fighting back.
They always do it with such class.