We recently asked teachers of the BuzzFeed Community to tell us the worst experience they’ve had with an entitled rich student or their parents. Here are the most shocking stories:
1. “I used to teach middle school art at a private school in New Jersey. One of my students was receiving a B for the marking period. I was called into the middle school head’s office to have a conference with this child’s parents for giving their child this ‘unacceptable grade’ without any prior communication with them. These parents started to berate me about my teaching practices (none of which they asked me about personally) all while the school head was there doing nothing! They even accused me of ‘just not liking boys.”
—Anonymous
2. “After years teaching in state schools, we moved out of London and found a job in a private school, it was awful. The students referred to state school kids as ‘poor children’ and said that teachers don’t care about students in state schools. They would spend the lessons arguing over who had more tractors or teslas at home.”
—Anonymous
3. “My teacher colleague at a private school begged a student to make some effort in class. They told the student ‘Come on you have so much more potential, you’re just wasting your parent’s money here.’ The student replied, ‘No I’m not. I’m wasting my grandparents’ money. So it doesn’t matter, I’m not going to bother.'”
—Anonymous
4. “I’m an art teacher at a private school and I had a parent (art teacher at an extremely expensive private school) who would not accept their son made a minimal effort in class because he was vaguely good at art. The dad spent 10 minutes describing to me how he took the son to Paris over half term on an art trip and visited the Louvre together, so he was obviously ‘extremely talented’. Son would not make any effort beyond the bare minimum, never push himself to improve his work or listen to any advice or critique.”
—Anonymous
5. “I was an art teacher at a private school teaching from age 7-16. I would get multiple groups of parents joining together in laughter about my subject. ‘No, I’m not going to even waste my time talking to her LOL!’ We were not allowed to leave parents’ evening until we had spoken to every person, so that was fun waiting until 11p.m. to be ‘excused’ once every parent had left.”
—Anonymous
6. “I worked in an upper-middle-class area and a student (in a colleague’s class) was struggling with the reading test (they were below grade level). The parent asked for the tests in advance and the teacher said no. The parent went to the principal who told the teacher she had to. The student started passing the tests. The teacher rearranged the answer choices and the student started failing again since the parent had the student memorizing the answers. This was third grade.”
—Anonymous
7. “I was the gifted coordinator for a middle school. A wealthy mother of twins wanted her children tested to see if they were gifted. I tested them both. The boy tested in (barely) and the girl didn’t come close. The mom demanded a meeting when she got the results. She said it was ‘impossible’ for one to be gifted and the other not. I tried explaining, but she wasn’t hearing it. She then said I could place her daughter in the program ‘if I wanted to’ as she slid her open checkbook across my desk. I slid it back as I said, ‘I don’t want to.’ She left in a huff and a few days later enrolled both kids in a private school for the gifted. I wonder how much the bribe cost her.”
—Anonymous
8. “I taught an economics class. The wealthy kids were actually very interested in learning, but their parents wrote several complaint letters to the administration because I was forcing their kids to learn about money management and how to become independent.’ Sorry, my bad!”
—Anonymous
9. “I once saw a parent basically pay a teacher at a different school (i.e. this person teaches at an all-girls school but the project is for a child in an all-boys school) to do a project for their child. The teacher felt obligated to do it because it was an obscene amount of money and she felt like she could use it.”
—Anonymous
10. “I am a college instructor. I once had a student pick up a call from their hedge fund manager in the middle of class. The student was having a full-on conversation and didn’t even think to leave the class until I asked them to.”
—anonymous
11. “I had a (very wealthy) student tell me that they didn’t need to do their work because ‘My parents pay a lot of taxes so that basically means that I’m your boss since they pay your salary.’ This was a high school freshman. Dear reader, he did end up doing his work.”
—anonymous
12. “The private school I work at just straight-up changed the dates of one of our school holidays at late notice because a couple of parents complained that the term dates clashed with their vacation plans. So many teachers were screwed over. The teachers who already had vacation plans got to have an extra-long school holiday and the ones who didn’t had to work an extra week AND cover for the teachers who were on vacation!”
—Anonymous
13. “I had a kid whose parents regularly took extended vacations to Europe and the Caribbean during the school year. They demanded that teachers prepare daily lessons and worksheets a month in advance and then stay late after school to tutor the kids upon their return. The principal insisted we comply because the father donated to the school. Teachers never saw any of that money though.”
—Anonymous
14. And lastly, “I run a highly competitive choir program in an affluent area. Choir is a pretty big deal out here and the parents can get very entitled when they don’t get their way. A few years ago I had a student who didn’t make advanced choir (only 40–50 get in out of around 200 who audition), so the parents decided to SUE me and the school. Even after explaining the audition process, that their kid didn’t get a high enough score, and that the kid would still be placed in one of our other great choirs…nope. They persisted and even told me in a meeting with the principal that they made enough money to spare no expense on the best lawyers to get their way.”
“They must have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars over a few months getting all of these different lawyers to try to find a reason why their kid should get into the group. No one could but they kept hiring new lawyers to keep trying. Eventually, I got tired of fighting with them and constantly being harassed by their lawyers so my principal and I decided to just give in. It was the only thing we could do if we didn’t want to keep fighting them for who knows how long but honestly I regret it to this day and wish I had stuck to my guns… it just wasn’t worth it anymore. All of this over middle school choir! Unbelievable.”
—Anonymous
Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
