Parents are biggest teacher complaint at Indiana’s affluent schools

            By Dottie Spainhour, THG News

An Indiana State Teachers Association (ISTA) study has revealed that students’ parents are the most mentioned complaint by teachers in the state’s wealthiest school districts.

Research conducted over the 2003-2004 school year in the top ten most affluent school corporations showed that while instances of the biggest problems that plague poor school districts are low (gang violence, drugs, teen pregnancy), teachers who work in wealthy areas still have low morale due to the constant pressure put on them by parents.

Eighty-one percent of teachers in rich districts declared meddling, overbearing parents as the worst thing about their jobs.

“Rich parents are used to throwing their weight around since they have money and power,” said Rick Reinholt, director of the ISTA study.  “They are constantly pressuring teachers to change their teaching style or class rules to suit their child.  This drives many teachers out of the profession.”

“I love teaching and even like our students, but the parents absolutely drive me insane,” said Wayne Greathouse, a German teacher at Carmel High School, “They think they can treat us teachers like dirt because they make ten times our salaries.”

Reinholt said that through his research he was able to identify and group the most troublesome parents into five distinct classifications:

1. Enablers

These parents believe everything their children tell them, even if their child has a history of lying to them that goes back to preschool.  If a teacher sends the child of an enabler to the office for misbehaving, that teacher will receive a phone call that evening from the parent who believed their child when he or she says they were an innocent victim, sent to the office for no other reason than the fact that the teacher just doesn’t like the student.  Enablers also make a million excuses for why their kids screw up: a friend made them do it, the family is going through a rough time, their goldfish died, or they get dry skin in the winter time.

2.  Negotiators

When the child of a negotiator doesn’t do as well in a class as the parents expect, negotiators contact the teacher to try to talk them into giving 6,000 points of extra credit or taking three-month old assignments late.  Negotiators are usually tenacious businesspeople used to making deals and can’t accept “no” as an answer.  They attempt to appeal to the emotions of the teacher—anything to get the teacher to give in and raise that high “F” grade to a “D”.

3.  The Clueless

These parents are in their own world and never know their child’s grade until a teacher finally gets a hold of them on the phone and tells them that the child in question is missing 54 out of 55 assignments for the semester.  Clueless parents usually don’t know when report cards come out, so their children just throw them away.  If they do happen to ask their child about their grades, the child says they lost their report card but rest assured—they made the “A” honor roll (when in reality they had a 0.7 GPA).  The children of The Clueless are smarter than their parents, so they can get away with bringing home a fake report card written with crayon on wide-ruled loose leaf.

4.  Foghorns

These parents know they are not very intelligent, so they feel the only way they can get their point across is by talking at a decibel level that makes windows shake and eardrums bleed.  All it takes is one conference with a Foghorn to make a teacher bend over backwards to keep a child happy so they will never, ever have to have a conversation with their parents again. 

5.  Spammers

Spammers are very smart and successful individuals that usually have unrealistic expectations for their children.  Their child might have the brain power of a tsetse fly and a complete lack of motivation, but the parents think this kid will be the one who finds a cure for cancer.  Spammers check on their child’s progress at least a dozen times a day, causing the teacher’s e-mail and voice mail to meltdown periodically.  Spammers never give up hope that someday their child will grow out of the phase they are in and show their true promise.

Officials with the ISTA are currently looking into ways to make working conditions better for its members working in affluent schools.  Until a solution is found, teachers are encouraged to reduce stress by not returning any e-mails or phone messages left by obnoxious parents.

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