So, I get a call from the school...

So last night the vice-principal calls me again and asks what we've done to punish my 8-year-old.

I tell her, "That's none of your business, but I have told him to apologize to his teacher and the class tomorrow. He won't do it again."

She then starts telling me that I encourage such behavior and suggests that I taught him to do what he did to their system. I said, "Oh, so I taught him how to click on a name? Yes, I am guilty of that."

She then says, "Because of your tech background, I don't doubt he learned this from you."

I repeat this out loud. "Because of my tech background, you think he learned this from me?"

My wife, listening to the conversation, is laughing so hard she has tears rolling down her face.

I said, "Look, this is the last thing I'm going to say on the subject and then I'm going to hang up because I've talked enough about this and we're about to have dinner. You should call your IT person and tell him to set the computer system up better so that AN 8-YEAR-OLD can't lock people out of the system."

Today should interesting as well.

Never a dull moment.

 

I wouldn't put up with the VP's shit. Schedule a meeting with the school system's Superintendent. No one should tell you how to parent or make commentary like that.

 

This.

That second call is bullshit.

 

Eh, if you're going to be dealing with public school administrators, you're going to run into garbage. It's only going to hurt in the long run to escalate this one.

 

LTL is probably right, but I'd still escalate it at this point.

I would put everything about what happened and the two phone calls down in writing, then turn it around and say you want to know what safeguards have been put into place and what has been done to punish the teachers and IT people there who have been so lax in their duties that a third-grader is allowed to do something that ended up being relatively harmless, but could have been a much more serious breach. I would also ask if there's been any investigation into other breaches by other students that may have exposed other, more serious and confidential information.

They want to blame the "bad" stuff on the parent, but considering how advanced it sounds like your child is in the class, I wonder if they are willing to give you the credit for that, too? Or does that credit go to the teacher?

Send that letter to the VP, with cc's to the teacher, superintendent and everyone on the school board, and request a meeting.

The VP wants to get nuts, let's get nuts.

 

I think I'll try to rob the local grocery store today.

If I get caught, I'll just tell them I was trying to expose how good or bad their security system is. Yeah, that'll go over well.

Ya know, an 8-year-old can probably ring a fire alarm and lock all the students/teachers out of the classroom during recess, too. Doesn't really make it a laughing matter.

 

Agree with LTL ... might even pretend that there has been some severe punishment meted out, if only for public consumption.

As an aside ... My best friend's older daughter is a high school science teacher. She's angling for principal jobs and just recently passed some standardized "principal's test." I am told this test involves a lot of scenarios to which the aspiring principal is formulate responses. Would be interesting to hear what her response to this situation would be.

 

Yeah, but ... an 8-year-old knows that pulling on that fire alarm is verboten unless it's necessary. An 8-year-old doesn't know that if you check this box on this web page that all hell's gonna break lose.

 

And there's an expectation that there are safeguards in place to keep 8-year-olds from being able to access these things - even if they knew exactly what they were doing.

The second phone call, and blaming it on the parents, is what takes it over the line for me. Asking what you've done to punish your child is a bullshit question.

 

Holy Shit... She called you back?
Seriously?
Is this a public school?

You must have ticked off the VP by laughing in the first place, I'm stunned they call back to inquire about the punishment.

 

Yeah, it sounds like the VP was pissed about the reaction and that is why she decided to push it further. At that point, I'd be asking for a meeting the the principal. At that meeting, I would make it clear that despite my initial reaction, I took it very seriously when I addressed the issue with my child, but I consider the second phone call from the VP to be inappropriate. I would also be asking what the school is doing to correct the ridiculous flaw in its online security.

 

The word is the VP got into trouble over this. The teacher kind of indicated as much.

Public school and the principal is retiring, so maybe my kid is messing up her chances at promotion.

I'll have him hack into her emails when he gets home to find out for sure...