I received a letter from a student's Mother about a week ago.
Here is the background: The Mother came to report card Pick-up and had never talked to me nor met me before--she had never even seen me before. She accused me of not teaching my class (her daughter lied), not giving her daughter credit for assignments (if a student turns in work that is not labelled, I do not give credit. Understand that when I collect assignments I am collecting a minimum of 150 pieces of work. Sometimes if more than one thing is due on a day, I may collect 300-600 pieces of work that I have to grade and record in my electronic gradebook. So it is important that things are labelled), hating my job, bringing-up unrelated rumors about me, etc...).The Mother threatened to have her daughter carry a hidden tape recorder to my class. All of this is untrue.
I was professional and did not address her emotional tirade and turned the subject toward what we were currently doing in class. In the 3 weeks that ensued, I have left 3 messages with the Mother and have not heard back from her. I suspect the daughter is erasing the messages so the Mother is not even receiving them. I log all my calls and put my phone log in the Assistant Principal's mailbox. The Mother then seemed to back down. I did tell the Mother that I had incurred an injury and despite my Doctor's desire to have me miss at least 1 week of work if not several, I was periodically absent to keep medical appointments regarding my injury. I chose to deflect this as I knew I would get nowhere with this Psycho and my station for report cards was in the cafeteria with hundreds of parens present--many of us teachers are stationed in the cafeteria.
So last week, the daughter comes to me and wants me to accept very late work. For weeks I had told my students that they could turn-in 3 projects either the Wed. before Thanksgiving Break or the day they returned from Break--Monday. (Some kids like the extra time to finalize their work whereas some get it done and don't want to use their Break to do work).I told them that if they take an extended Break that their work would be late--so they needed to get it in on Wed. if they wouldn't be there on Mon. or get it in on Mon. if they wouldn't be there on Wed. and they needed to turn-it in even earlier than Wed. if they were going to miss both Wed. and Mon.
This girl comes to me with her work a week and a half late. To make this short--I asked her to just bring me a note from her Mother stating that the work was late due to bad weather which prevented the girl from being in school on Monday (she didn't turn-in her work early even though she was gone the Wed. before Break). I asked for this NOT to harass the girl, but in case another student played the "unfair" card, I would have documentation that it was a weather issue and the parent had "proven" that.
The girl brings me a scathing letter from the Mother--the letter did not say that it was a weather issue but simply that they had gone out of town for the Holiday.
The letter went on to say that I was singling out her daughter because of Report Card Pick-Up--remember--I was professional and steered the conversation to what was currently going on in class. The Mother also thinks that because the daughter does all her work in all her other classes she must be doing her work in my class (not true--she doesn't do her work and her other grades--C,D, Fs) show that she is not a stellar student. The Mother also says that she is not going to have "issues' with me due to my injury? The letter is so poorly written--it says because the Mother herself has health issues but I think she wrote it wrong and means my injury. The Mother threatens to take everything to a "higher Power" as I don't have homework info on Edline(I do--I upload my exact Lesson plan that I turn-in to my dept. chair every week on Friday--I e-mail it to my dept. chair and upload it every Friday. Maybe the Mother can't use a computer. I think the daughter is lying...once again.
The girl is a liar and the Mother is the worst one I've had in the nearly 20 years I have taught. She is worse than the drunk parents I have had.
I am waiting for the shoe to drop and this woman is a Psycho. I don't believe there is anything I could say or do, even with my proof to get her to see her daughter is a liar. The girl is really quiet--I think it is because the Mother is such a nut that the daughter has learned her Mother's wrath and doesn't dare tell the truth so the daughter has had to learn to lie and blame things on others (the teacher(s).)
I hope that when the shoe drops the woman is so abusive I can have her arrested.
Any ideas? The letter said that we have to get together. It did not ask for me to call or anything so I have not. The letter is accusatory and one can tell it was a poison pen letter written in a fit of anger.
I teach bell to bell, there is no discussion of literature so the woman can't accuse me of anything.
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