For the most part, I got along with my teachers growing up. My ninth-grade (freshman) English teacher, however, absolutely hated my guts.

I was in school sports, on both the wrestling and football teams, and I was on the school chess team, so I had to take a lot of days off for events. This specific teacher looked up the days I would be away and doubled the homework due after those days, knowing I wouldn’t be able to finish it all. (Yes, I know that was a lot of clubs. I was an overachiever in high school. I kind of regret it now; it cost me a lot in lost time and stress.)

She didn’t check the homework every single day, but she always did after those long away periods!

Worse, she would give me low grades — seventies and eighties — on my papers that had very few notations or marks, but I would talk with other children and see that their papers were heavily marked up but would be scored in the nineties.

After one particularly low grade — sixty-four — on an assignment that I had busted my a** off for and knew I had performed particularly well on, I asked her about it.

Teacher: “You’re only using about half of your total capacity, but these other students are doing 100% of their total capacity. I have higher expectations for you than for them.”

Me: “So, you mean that if my paper is better than, say, [Classmate]’s paper… you’re going to give me fewer points because you think I’m smarter than him?”

Teacher: *Smiling and nodding* “Yes! Exactly!”

What. A. B****.

If that wasn’t bad enough, she gave us an opportunity for extra credit: we had to go to a local college’s rendition of a play called “Eye Piece” and write a 2,500-word paper on it, tie it to what we discussed in class over the play, and turn in the ticket and playbill.

It was due on Monday. The play ran late Friday through Sunday, so there was no way to do it and turn it in ahead of time. But I was going to miss Monday for a competition — a huge competition that our school only got into because we placed highly in our circuit during the year.

I asked her if I could turn it in on Tuesday, and I got confirmation that I could multiple times — over and over, every day, the whole week in the run-up to the event.

I busted my f****** a** off writing that paper after the play so that it wouldn’t interfere with my event. Come Tuesday, she wouldn’t accept it.

Teacher: “That would be unfair to the students who got their assignments in on time. I don’t remember ever telling you that I’d accept it today. You should’ve dropped it off yesterday after your event.”

(At least the play was very good. I recommend watching it if they ever put on a production of it near you.)

I finally got my revenge during the final exam. It was a 105-question exam scored out of 100; the final five questions, for an extra point each, were “freebies”. “What did you learn in this class?” “What was your favorite part of the class?” “How do you plan to apply what you learned in this class to your life?” And so on.

I gave her both barrels. I said, “Because you never left comments on how to improve on my papers, I didn’t learn anything.” I said, “My favorite part of this class is that it’s over.” I said, “I plan to use what I learned in this class to better recognize bosses and other superiors when I finally start working.”

I gave many examples of the things she’d done, the mean things she’d said to me, and the names she’d occasionally called me (she often referred to me as “The Jock” as though it was an insult), and used them to support my positions in my little essays, as I proved that she was the most terrible teacher I had ever had and that she was hurting not just me, but the other students in the class with her terrible teaching style. 

I spent all the time I had left after finishing the rest of the test pouring my pain into those bonus questions.

I finished the test and went to wait in the study hall for a bit before my next final.

The teacher confronted me in that study hall with snot running down her face and demanded that I see her at the principal’s office.

There, she told her side of the story first, crying, screaming, and choking with tears. I apparently had hurt her feelings very badly and was a very ungrateful student. I mostly tuned her out as I prepared my defense.

The principal then asked for my side of the story, and I explained. I even was able to read sections from the answers I had given. The principal listened attentively to my venting about all of the s*** and abuse I’d gone through that year. (It had been a lot, much of which I am not mentioning here.)

The principal sighed and turned to the teacher.

Principal: “How many points were these questions worth?”

Me: “Five bonus points!”

Principal: “So, don’t give him any bonus points if you feel so put out by it.”

I still made the highest score in the class on the final, so I had that going for me.

I heard later that, after that performance, the next school year, the teacher had to have all of her assignments signed off by the department chair, and she had to begin accepting assignments by email.

A few years later, she chose another student to abuse like she had abused me, and this time, she got fired for it because they were actually watching her. Prior to my dramatic complaint, the administration hadn’t known she was a problematic teacher.

I had myself a little celebration on her firing-versery the next year, even though I had moved on to college by then. I made my whole dorm cinnamon rolls and refused to explain why.

It’s the second day of high school class after Christmas break. My son is in detention, and I am in the vice principal’s office to discuss it.

Me: “Why does my son have to serve detention?”

Vice Principal: “He has an unexcused absence.”

Me: “And when was that?”

Vice Principal: “He missed the first day back from break.”

Me: “He was at Denver’s Stapleton Airport. It was shut down because of heavy snow. His flight the day before was canceled. He didn’t get a flight out until yesterday afternoon, too late to come to class.”

Vice Principal: “That makes it an unexcused absence.”

Me: “It was not his fault.”

Vice Principal: “You should have called to say the flight was canceled.”

Me: “Was anyone in the building that day?”

Vice Principal: “No.”

Me: “Then who was I going to call?”

Vice Principal: “No matter; the detention still stands.”

Me: “My son has asthma. If he missed a day because he was sick, would he have detention if I couldn’t call in advance?”

Vice Principal: “No. That’s excused.”

Me: “Well, if that happens again in Denver, he will be sick that day.”

I hate to lie, but both my son and I knew this was not fair to him.

I work in the IT department for a South Carolina public school. They aren’t the sharpest bunch. With the CARES money (government relief for the global health crisis), we were able to buy every kid in the district a laptop. Many kids were also starting to do school from home. My patience is thin with the particular school I service to begin with. They can never do anything for themselves.

This little conversation happened in 2021 with the librarian, who is my contact person at the school.

Librarian: “We have a problem with a student’s laptop.”

Me: “Which is?”

Librarian: “The student is virtual, and her dad is sending her to live with her mother in another part of the county. The mom is on the phone saying the dad will not give her the school-issued laptop. Dad says he doesn’t trust the mother to turn it in at the end of the year. He signed for it. The student can’t do her work.”

Me: “And?”

Librarian: “Well, the kid needs to do her work.”

Me: “The father won’t return school property. Call the cops.”

[Librarian] went into the office looking very confused. She returned a few minutes later.

Librarian: “Well, how do we resolve this?”

Me: “Jeez. Tell the father to bring the laptop to the school. You can sign something for him absolving him of responsibility for it. Then, the mother can pick it up from here.”

The principal walked in just then and heard my comment.

Principal: “Yeah, I guess we can do that. I was just wanting to get another laptop for the student.”

Me: “We just don’t have an unlimited supply of laptops to give to people — especially if one is being held up due to some tiff between two feuding divorcees.”

I have to think of everything for these people.

CONTENT WARNING: Sexual Harassment/Assault By Teacher

This is a story from when I was just starting high school. Like a lot of teenagers, there were teachers I liked and teachers I disliked, but there was one teacher that pretty much every girl in my school disliked. We shall call him Mr. Creep.

As the name may make apparent, he was a creep. He would very visibly “check out” any girl who came close to him, get uncomfortably close, breathe on your neck if you were presenting in his class, and mutter suggestive comments under his breath that only you could hear.

However, when we went to complain, we were stonewalled.

Principal: “I’m very disappointed in you girls. You shouldn’t let prejudice make you judge someone like that.”

You see, Mr. Creep was Black, and some of the girls complaining were white — not all of them, not by a long shot, but enough for our “wonderful” principal to conclude that our dislike of him must be because we were uncomfortable with his skin color, and that his behavior couldn’t have anything to do with it.

The problem was that those he targeted tended to be the quieter girls, so when we got told off for complaining, most of us just ducked our heads and tried our best to avoid him, hoping to just endure it.

However, it all came to a head when one of my classmates was doing a reading in class. She had a bit of an accent, and Mr. Creep ended up saying out loud the sort of thing he normally whispered under his breath.

Mr. Creep: “Mmm… You’ve got a pretty mouth… Got some things I’d like to see it do…”

Voice: “WHAT?!”

The entire class whipped around to see one of our other teachers standing in the doorway. We’ll call her Miss Ellen. She was an older lady. Before and since, I’ve never heard her speak in anything more than a low lilting tone. But that day, I would swear I heard the window next to me shake from her shout.

She stood there, fuming for a moment, before turning to look at the class.

Miss Ellen: “Everyone, go down to the library. Tell [Librarian] I sent you down.”

We sort of looked at each other, but then we all gathered our things and filed out. Miss Ellen just kept glaring daggers at Mr. Creep, and he just stood there with a smug smirk on his face, obviously unconcerned.

Once we all got to the library, we milled about, messing around like teenagers do, until one of the guys called out by the window.

Classmate: “Hey, it’s the cops!”

We all crowded around the window to see and, sure enough, there were three cop cars all pulled into the parking lot, and we had a decent view of Mr. Creep being dragged along by a trio of officers, fighting the entire way until he got shoved into one of the cars. Miss Ellen was there, too, talking to a cop while holding a towel to her head.

It wasn’t until senior year that I was able to get the story of what happened before that from one of my other teachers. Apparently, after we left, Miss Ellen tried to get Mr. Creep to go with her to the principal, but he just ignored her. She then called the principal to come down to the room and confronted Mr. Creep when he tried to just walk out. He ended up slapping her for “being mouthy”, and had her backed into a corner. She elbowed him in the stomach to get him to back off, and the other teachers who had arrived at that point managed to hold him back.

Apparently, he calmed down a bit, still acting smug, until the cops showed up and he realized that this wasn’t just going to blow over or be swept under the rug, so he started flipping out and had to be pulled down by the cops.

We never saw Mr. Creep again, but I expect that none of our class ever forgot the image of Miss Ellen standing up for us in a fury. She certainly became one of my favorite teachers during my time in high school.

This story is part of the Highest-Voted-Stories Of-2023 roundup!

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I am a high school principal, and for better or worse, that means signing a lot of documents. I mean A LOT. Report cards, IEPs (Individualized Education Programs), reports, requests, diplomas — the list is endless. Over the years, I have developed a signature that is easy to write, distinctive, and kind of hard to read. In other words, it’s a scrawl.

Recently, I sent home registration papers to a new parent whose teenager will be entering the school in September. They included a cover letter signed by me. The next day, there was a message on our school’s voicemail from the teenager’s mother.

Mother: “Hi. I just received the registration package from the school, and I had a question about the letter that came with it. It says it’s from the principal, but I can’t read his signature. Can someone get back to me about this?”

Note that under my signature is my name and title printed proudly in 12-pt Times New Roman.

My secretary called back, and [Mother] demanded to speak to me personally.

Me: “Hi there, [My Name] speaking. How can I help you?”

Mother: “I received your letter with the registration package. I was a little confused because I couldn’t read your signature.”

Me: “Confused… how? It was from me.”

Mother: “I know, but I couldn’t read your signature, so…”

I sat there, quietly reflecting.

Mother: “You know, I don’t want to make a big deal of it, but I don’t think it’s okay to have a signature people can’t read.”

Me: “I’m not sure I understand the concern. The letter is from me, on school letterhead, with my name and title clearly displayed—”

Mother: *Interrupting* “But I can’t read the signature. I think it needs to be clearer so that, you know, I— people can read it.”

I was thoughtfully silent again.

Mother: “I think you need to change it.”

Me: “Okay, well, thanks for calling. If you are having any difficulty with the registration papers themselves, you can talk to our Guidance secretary.”

Mother: “Are you going to fix it?”

Me: “Fix it? My signature?”

Mother: “I think you need to change it.”

Me: “Thanks. If you need assistance, I’ll pass your call to Guidance. Bye now.”

I hung up.

A little while later, I received an email from [Mother] with suggested examples of what she wanted my signature to be.

I thoughtfully deleted it.