TEXAS: A sixth-grade teacher is seriously frustrated when it comes to dealing with her students’ parents. After a particularly upsetting run-in with a parent on March 28, she took to social media to express just how hopeless she feels.
In a Facebook post that has now gone viral; Julie Marburger explained exactly why she’s quitting her teaching job by the end of the school year.
“I left work early today after an incident with a parent left me unable emotionally to continue for the day. I have already made the decision to leave teaching at the end of this year, and today, I don’t know if I will make it even that long. Parents have become far too disrespectful and their children are even worse. Administration always seems to on the side of keeping the parent happy, which leaves me with no way to do the job I was hired to do . . . teach kids.”
She explained that despite having to manage day to day activities on a nonexistent budget she often had to buy classroom materials with her own money, that she was not disheartened. It was the behavior of the parents that ticked her off the most.
“I have finally had enough of the disregard for personal and school property and am drawing a line in the sand on a myriad of behaviors that I am through tolerating,” she wrote. “Unfortunately, one parent today thought it was wrong of me to hold her son accountable for his behavior and decided to very rudely tell me so in front of her son.”
And apparently her kids’ bad behavior isn’t just reserved for the classroom he was failing to do his homework as well.
“Report cards come out later this week, and I have nearly half of my students failing due to multiple missing assignments,” she wrote. “Most of these students and their parents haven’t seemed to care about this over the past three months even though weekly reports go out, emails have been sent, and phone calls have been attempted. But now I’m probably going to spend my entire week next week fielding calls and emails from irate parents wanting to know why I failed their kid.”
Julie is trying to draw attention to the fact that the teachers deserve a little respect from the parents who entrust them with their kids for hours and hours, day after day, as there’s no denying how much teachers do for their students on a daily basis;
“I have never heard of a profession where people put so much of their heart and soul into their job, taking time and resources from their home and family and getting paid such an insultingly measly amount. Teachers are some of the most kind and giving people I have ever met, yet they get treated so disrespectfully from all sides. Most parents can’t stand to spend more than a couple hours a day with their kid, but we spend eight with yours and 140 others just like him. Is it too much to ask for a little common courtesy and civil conversation?”
Julie further adds that she gets virtually no support from the higher authorities at her school.
Disappointed by the behavior of both parents and administrators alike, Julie has now decided to step away from the unsatisfying profession of teaching.
“It has been a dream of mine for as long as I can remember to have a classroom of my own, and now my heart is broken to have become so disillusioned in these short two years.”
And even though Julie is heartbroken about her decision, she still wants parents to hear her point loud and clear for the sake of all teachers out there.
“People absolutely HAVE to stop coddling and enabling their children. It’s a problem that’s going to spread through our society like wildfire. It’s not fair to society, and more importantly, is not fair to the children to teach them this is okay. It will not serve them towards a successful and happy life.”
