Throwing a birthday party for your kid can be a big deal.

One dad is hoping for “one last hurrah” for their middle schooler before they get too deep into the teenage years.

But when school policies and problematic classmates got in the way, a clever coworker had a creative suggestion that would ensure the roller rink bash didn’t spin out of control.

Read on for the full story!

Want me to invite the entire class to a birthday party? Okay.

My coworker has a daughter in sixth grade (elementary school in our school district) and she is kinda popular.

He wanted to give her a good birthday party because his other two daughters kinda stopped spending time with him in middle school and he kinda wanted a last hoorah.

His daughter chose to do it at a roller skating rink and he went all out, renting the whole place out for the party. She invited most of her classmates and some other friends and family.

But then they got a letter from the school.

After giving out invitations, she got a letter to deliver to her dad and return signed.

It said that students must invite all students in their class or none at all. This apparently is a school anti bullying policy.

But they didn’t want to invite everyone. And for good reason.

The problem is that some of the students are very problematic.

One is a racist kid who has made threats about bringing weapons to school. The other has behavior issues and once threw a chair at a group of students, sending two to the hospital for stitches.

There were some other students she wasn’t close with, but willing to invite in order to comply.

But his coworker had a great idea.

When he told me about this, I asked, “Did you have a security deposit or something on the roller skating rink?”

He said it was a $200 deposit for damages. I told him to require a $200 deposit from those kids if they want to come.

It worked, the kids obviously weren’t going to pay a $200 deposit and the party went off without a hitch.

This malicious compliance worked like a charm!

What did Reddit think?

This commenter argues there are limits on the school’s authority here.

Next time, just distributing the invites privately should suffice.

Some teachers aren’t too fond of these types of policies either.

This user concurs the policy lets too many bullies off the hook.

In the end, the party rolled on smoothly, with no unwanted drama or flying chairs.

It turns out, a little strategic thinking saved the day—and his wallet.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.