Adventures with the Manatee County School System

Oh, how I love our local school system. Actually, the little guy--who's not so little anymore--has some pretty strong teachers this year. (Except for one of them. Indication #1 was the back to school night when she spent her precious 4 minutes with the parents talking about the mystery of disappearing pencils and paper in last year's class and how annoying that was.)

So here's someone I don't like. She's supposed to be in charge of the "extra" support we need. But what she's really in charge of is excuses. And lame excuses at that. She's like the operator of a wet mop that has collected tons of crap, and instead of cleaning it with fresh hot water, she just continues to smudge the crap around on the floor making no real progress.

I called her today to set up a parent teacher conference.

Line 1 of her response:

"You know, I can't set that meeting up. You need to talk to the office manager, and you'll have to call back in the morning." Not I'll make this happen. Not thank you for being a concerned parent.

Time consumed: 1/4 of our conversation

Translation: "You are a turd for giving me more work to do."

Line 2 of her response:

"You know, ALL of the teachers will have to be at this meeting. You can't just meet with one of them. It will be everyone, all 7 teachers, aaaaall together."

Time consumed: 1/2 of our conversation

Translation: Now this line was clearly aimed at intimidation. She's thinking, "Maybe if I make this pest feel outnumbered, I won't have to be at this meeting and I'll have less work." Wrong, lady. So wrong.

Line 3 of her response, which is really starting to piss me off:

Something along the lines of "You know every teacher has 139 students. There's just no way that teachers can take care of every little detail with 139 students. 139 students is a whole lot of students."

Time consumed: The last 1/4 of this lousy conversation

Translation: This means, "In the grand scheme of things, we couldn't give one little starburst about your student. And don't you even think for one second that he matters...or that I care about the conference that you are evidently going to move forward with despite my best efforts to derail it."

Thanks for the clarity! I'm soooo glad I called. It at least confirms where I stand before the big event. I know you'll look forward to the blog about the parent teacher conference. It's all up to the office manager now.