Time to take it to the Principal

If a teacher doesn't give you respect, despite the fact that you are also a parent, it may be time to take it to the principal. If you've been involved in the children's lives, taking them to school, helping them with school, caring for them, the parents should handle everything. But even your spouse may not get the respect they deserve as a parent. It may be time to...take it to the principal.

The principal may not care, and they may very much care. But, if you are their parent, you have a right to represent your kids, and yourself as a parent of that child. Parents make huge stinks about much more trivial matters than this.

We've personally noticed a definite lack of awareness and impartial treatment on behalf of K-8 teachers. My stepkids' dad is a nice, gentle, and often quiet man. He gives off no other impression. He works with policemen and firemen for a public sector job. He often informs the teachers of his honorable work and offers goodies and other connections for their classes. The teachers see my stepkids' mom slightly more, but my husband never gives any reason for a teacher to ever suspect that he is anything other than a caring, available dad. He also holds his tongue and doesn't badmouth his ex. But he does simply make a request, at the beginning of each school year, to be included as much as the mother is, to be contacted as well, and to be given separate parent-teacher conferences.

Still, he's been treated year after year as if he's an uninvolved idiot unworthy of the teachers' time. On the other hand, my stepkids' mom is seen chitchatting and laughing with the same teachers, get extra information, extra face time, extra...everything. We've seen teachers act like my husband will steal his own children's school work. The school work that they would take home with him, to his house, directly after an open house or school event...but they take it from him to give to the mom, whom they're not going home with. Other parents are allowed to take the work home....We've been told different stories from the teachers, which later my stepdaughter will tell us what the teacher actually said to them or their mom. We've been directly insulted, after making simple requests out of the best of intentions for the children and the safety of all parties. My husband has been told that he cannot volunteer for classes like the moms, unless he has a talent or skill. And worst of all, he and I have been accused of helping the kids cheat, which never happened, and resulted in one child receiving a horrible grade on a major project.

My husband, as a good and trying father, has never deserved this and continues to not deserve this from public schools and public school teachers. Whatever my stepkids' mom is telling these teachers shouldn't matter, in the least. Their impression,whether imagined on their own or given to them by my stepkids' mom, of my husband or I shouldn't have bearing on how they treat us. And most of all, they should simply respect requests that are made in the best interest of the child's safety, that honor court orders. It is not theirs to judge.