Adventures with Parents

So, summer school went out with a bang today. Here's a story about one of my students who's mom failed her on the very final day of summer school.
I was late to summer school, but SK was even later. She showed up on Monday of the second week, and where there had been seven, there were suddenly eight. I don't even know how she was allowed to start a week late, but her mother must have just talked her way through the bureaucracy. Or rather, beaten through it like a battering ram, as I would soon learn was more her style. SK is a very shy, somewhat bratty but very polite little girl, reluctant to go to the board or answer questions during class, but always she answers yessir, nosir, etc. She never gave me any discipline trouble, until thursday, when, right in front of me, she kicked another student. Detention. "but, but..." No, kicking another student is never appropriate in my classroom. That's more than a warning. I had already given a detention for a similar thing, when K2 was pushing another RH. She ended up serving detention on her birthday, which is unfortunate. But that sort of thing can't happen in a classroom. It's not only a huge distraction, but I need to send out the message that my classroom is safe. Anyway, I'm getting off track.
So, the day after I gave SK the detention, Friday, the last day of summer school, she comes in and hands me a piece of paper, says it's a note. I open it up, and it reads something like this.

I will come in this morning to discuss the detention slip with you.
signed,
the mom

She underlined discuss herself. Great. I already had called a parent, and had a very positive response (you'll see a change in his attitude tomorrow, that sort of thing). I knew this discussion was going to be different, maybe because I would be talking to a mom rather than a dad, but more because of the way the note was written, the fact that it did not have the detention slip attached, and just the way SK asks in class. I have a feeling her mom has come to her rescue before.

So, before the mom showed up, I went and spoke with Jaws, the MTC alum who runs the summer school, to ask him about what will happen if she doesn't go to detention today. He told me to not even make that part of the question, but since I knew the mom was going to try to have her not serve it, I wanted to make sure I had my "consequence behind the consequence" all laid out. Jaws told me if she doesn't go, we withhold her grade, a nicer way of saying we'll fail her. Makes sense, because there's really nothing else we could do, since it was the last day of school and all, but it really set me up to butt heads with the mom.
When she finally showed up, I tried to remember everything people have said about talking with a parent. Start positive, kill them with politeness, don't get angry (or at least don't let it show, etc). So I did. We went out into the hall, and I told her I was very glad that she had come in so that we could discuss the detention, basically pretending like I thought she just wanted to know about the situation so it could be avoided next time, even though I knew she really wanted to just give me a hard time about it and tell me that her daughter wasn't going. Which she did. She told me all about how the guy whom her daughter had kicked was grabbing her leg, and wouldn't let go, so she was well within her rights to kick him, blah blah blah, and she would be ok with it if the other guy was also going to be in detention, but no one should put his hands on her daughter, etc, etc. I listened, agreed, and then told her that I couldn't punish what I didn't see, and that I didn't see anything of the kind, and while I certainly don't think her daughter is lying, if I punished students solely based on the words of other students, that would be a precedent that would put me in an impossible position, as a teacher. She just wouldn't listen and told me that she was going to take her daughter home, and so I told her that if she does not serve her detention, the school policy is that she will not receive a grade for summer school.
Next, she wanted to see the principal, who happened to be walking right by at that very moment. I asked him to come over, and he backed me up, completely, which felt really good. The woman would not listen to him either, and she told him she would go to the school board, and took the daughter, who had been all smiles the whole morning, home with her. What a waste. SK would have served the detention, no problem, but her mom somehow couldn't stomach it. Later, when my mentor figured out the grades, I realized that she would have failed anyway. But besides failing the course, she learned all the wrong lessons about responsibility, and I'm sure the next time the situation will be just the same.