We recently shared a post in which teachers confessed their most memorable parent-teacher conferences, and they left us gobsmacked:
Well, teachers in the BuzzFeed Community chimed in with some of their most memorable parent-teacher conferences, and these are all parts unforgettable and even more "WTF?!"
1. "I once caught a student cheating in class — they literally copied the entire test from the student next to them, and even copied the other student's name, then crossed it out and wrote their own name. I told the student they could retake the test alone with me just this once, and that it was their last chance. Their parent came in and scolded me, saying that I didn't put in the directions that cheating wasn't allowed!"
—Robert M. Medeirosl, Facebook
2. "My uncle is an elementary school teacher, and a few years back, he tried to discuss a student's performance with their father. The father stood, held up a hand, and literally shushed my uncle. He then said, 'I just want you to teach him how to be a good YouTuber.'"
3. "I was a teacher's assistant, and the teacher I worked with told me that during one parent-teacher conference, the parent kept shaking. She would randomly just start shaking her entire body. He wasn't quite sure what to do, when as he kept talking, a lizard crawled out from underneath her clothes! Turns out, the woman kept her lizard on her!"
4. "I had a meeting with a student who had minor but annoying behavior issues, and the principal and the kid's father attended. I shit you not, by the end of the meeting both the father and my principal were seriously discussing how they thought the boy was possessed by a demon! It was in that moment I realized I needed to get the hell out of that overly religious charter school. I just wanted to give that poor child a hug because he really wasn't even that bad!"
5. "I had a parent who was furious that I took away her daughter's novelty contact lenses because she was letting other students try them on, and it was creating a huge distraction. The parent was so angry that on parent-teacher conference night, she opened my classroom door and threw a bag of fast food trash into my classroom! The principal had to ban her from campus."
6. "I'm in special education, and I once had a mother come in during the second week of school and tell me, 'He doesn't need you. Communicate with his tutor if he has any work to do, and she'll do it.' Sure enough, his mom never answered any communications from the school, and he refused to do any work in school — it all went home with him and miraculously came back 100% correct. He couldn't get above a 20 on any of his in-class quizzes or tests, though."
7. "My first year as a teacher's assistant at a university, I received an email from the provost letting me know they’d received a call from a student’s mother. They told me that one of my students had gone to Florida for spring break, had gotten mugged, and was in a coma, so I couldn’t count any missed assignments against him for the rest of the semester. I wouldn't have, but I let the provost know that even if I'd given the student perfect scores for the rest of the semester, he would still only get a D-. So, the provost called the student's mother to suggest she withdraw him from the class, and she had no idea what we were talking about! Turns out, the student's girlfriend — a 15-year-old high school student — had spring break the week after ours. He had taken her to Florida, and she called the provost pretending to be his mother. They were scamming a 2-week vacation!
"He was back in my class two days later without so much as a scratch on him! But he left halfway through class, when the police came to ask him about taking a minor across state lines without parental consent."
8. "My cringiest parent-teacher conference was when the dad spent the entire conference staring at my breasts (I'm well-endowed). The mom either didn't notice or didn't care, but I spent the whole conference trying to discretely cover my chest, and fumbled over my words trying to get the conference done."
9. "I once had a parent-teacher conference for a student who wasn't doing well in class academically or behaviorally. His mom wouldn't acknowledge anything I said, but instead, kept repeating, 'Negative, Ghost Rider.' I asked her to explain what that meant, and she just said it again. I know the phrase, but to constantly say it over and over when a teacher is trying to inform you about your son's behavior in class?
"As an update, though, I tried to give the kid a little more leniency after seeing what he had to deal with at home, but he never turned it around. He ended up failing 8th-grade science, along with almost every other subject. I moved districts after that year, so I don’t know if he had to repeat the grade or took summer school."
10. "My first teaching job abroad was in Italy, specifically in Sicily. I had one student who was OK, but his misbehaving was causing lower-than-expected marks. Well, the first two parent-teacher meetings we had were with his mother, but it seemed that nothing was done. On the third one, this father entered the room, and all the other parents waiting took in sharp breaths. Turns out, the father was the local mafia boss! He asked me to describe his son's progress honestly, so I told him that his son needs to work harder or he would fail the official exam. The dad went silent for a minute, his face an angry cloud. Then, he told me he would make sure his son worked harder. The rest of the year, the child was as good as gold, and he ended up passing his exam with merit!"
11. "Two of my high school students got into a hair-pulling, knock-down, drag around fight one morning before school — turns out, the same boy was paying attention to both girls. Teachers separated the girls, the girl who 'lost' the fight was put into an ambulance, and the girl who 'won' was hauled to the principal's office, where parents were being called. When the principal reached one of the girls' parents, the parent said, 'Oh, that's terrible, I'll be right there! But tell me first — did my daughter win?'"
—Betsy Roberts Miller, Facebook
12. "I had one unforgettable parent-teacher conference where the mom only wanted to discuss how she was banging her landlord to get free rent, but she was sick of him! I was like, 'Um, OK — well, let's discuss your son's progress so far...'"
13. "I had a parent of one of my first graders who had a tattoo on the back of her calves, so that when she walked away, it clearly read, 'Fuck' on the left leg and 'You' on the right leg. The principal told her she could only come on campus if she wore long pants, so she would come in shorts to the outside door to avoid detection, grab her kid, turn around, and tell us exactly what she thought of us."
14. "I worked at a swimming academy as an administrator, and I had a dad once complain that his son was an amazing swimmer and didn’t need to be in the beginner's class, and that he should be moved up. I asked him how long he had been in the class, and he said, 'Oh, today is his first day.' The next week, he came back to request private lessons for his son. He said he needed his son to learn to swim perfectly in less than a month because they had a big pool party with all of their friends coming up, and he didn’t want to be embarrassed by his son wearing arm floaties while all of his friends' kids knew how to swim already. He said all this while his 6-year-old son was standing next to him, looking devastated. It broke my heart."
15. "At the school where I taught, there was a middle school boy who was the bane of every teacher's existence. We finally called his parents in for a conference, and after every teacher had their say, the father just shook his head and said, 'He's one sorry son of a bitch.'
"We were all so stunned that it was hard trying not to laugh!"
Keep those stories coming, BuzzFeed Community! Are you a teacher or school administrator who's had a seriously memorable — whether in a good way or a bad way — interaction with a parent? Tell us about it in the comments section, and you could be featured in an upcoming post!
Some responses have been edited for length and clarity.