<p>To StickerShock: My daughter hasn’t been individually targeted by teachers, because the sort of teacher misconduct to which I have objected has almost always been with regard to manipulative and intrusive “personal disclosure” classroom assignments of the sort described by the OP in Post #31. I have also objected to teacher misconduct based upon a teacher’s inappropriate solicitation of student affection (some teachers see themselves as “gurus”), and a teacher’s borderline (sometimes over-the-line) illegal classroom advocacy of his or her personal beliefs. </p>
<p>I can give you one example of extreme school administrator misconduct which did target my daughter as an individual.</p>
<p>My daughter was attending a public middle school (in a district different from her current public school district) headed by a social activist principal who had been fast-tracked into his/her position by a like-minded superintendent. The principal ruled with an iron fist, and insisted that teachers (many of whom were similarly like-minded) indoctrinate students in his/her personal beliefs, including that of faith-based socialism. Given that my family shared neither the principal’s faith nor his/her socialism, I requested that my daughter be removed from a group project in which students were indoctrinated in and pressured to promote faith-based socialism as the “best” basis for human society. The principal heard me out and “amiably” agreed to assign my daughter to an alternative project. Several weeks later, hours before the group project was to be showcased to parents and the public, my daughter phoned me from school reporting that she had just met with a CPS investigator who was going to phone me from the school. The investigator phoned and told me that she was investigating a recent report that my daughter was “dirty, disheveled, unkempt, and uncared-for.” The investigator stated that she had reported to the school prepared to take my daughter into custody, but after meeting with my daughter “for less than thirty seconds,” realized that the complaint made to CPS had been “baseless” (slanderous). The investigator stated that she was prohibited from identifying the “mandated reporter” who had made the baseless complaint; however, after I explained about the principal, and about my daughter’s reassignment from the faith-based socialism group project, the caseworker grimly stated, “I will not allow CPS to be used in that manner. I am closing your daughter’s file immediately. There is nothing to investigate.” After hanging up the phone, did I bellow, throw objects, pound walls, kick and punch furniture, and vomit with rage? You betcha. </p>
<p>To curmudgeon: Fortunately for my daughter (and for me), the last time she was subjected to extreme teacher misconduct was more than three years ago, when she was still attending her previous public school district. I normally deal with life’s negatives without overreacting, but when a school teacher–someone I am inclined to trust and respect–emotionally exploits or psychologically abuses my daughter, I become enraged. Still, I am the sort of person who will bellow (and vomit) in the privacy of my own home, throw my own objects, pound my own walls, and punch and kick my own furniture, rather than charge down to my daughter’s school (or anywhere else for that matter) in a rage and throw a public fit. (I know that such conduct would not only destroy my credibility, but might also get me arrested!) So, I have always dealt with extreme teacher misconduct by first letting loose (usually just verbally) at home, and then later sitting down and writing the teacher a cold-as-ice memo which only the most doltish teacher would fail to interpret as the first in a potential series of employment-endangering complaints. Each of my daughter’s personal boundary-overstepping teachers has always stepped back after receiving one of my memos.</p>