Bethesda World News

Local Schools Decide to Just Give Annoying Parents Whatever the Hell They Want

Linda J. waited at the classroom door to tie her daughter’s shoes on her way out to recess.  “I just couldn’t sit at home wondering if she’d trip and fall and get bits of gravel embedded in her palms. There’s no reason why she should have to experience that kind of pain.”

Meanwhile, a mile away at the middle school, Jordan C. sat in the principal’s office with a sheaf of papers in her lap. What was her mission? “This is my son Troy’s late homework.  I found it under the bed when I was picking up the dirty clothes from his floor. Most of it was done, so I only had to finish a few of the algebra equations.  Hope I didn’t get them wrong!  At least now he won’t get a zero for his assignments.”

Where’s Troy? BWN wondered.

“He’s at a friend’s house playing Wii.  It really helps his coordination. I didn’t see the point in making him sit here and listen to the grown-up talk!”

Over at the high school, Marc K., parent of a sophomore, submitted his approved list of essay questions to his daughter’s history teacher for use on the final exam.  “The teacher’s job is to make the kids look smart.  You don’t do that by giving them an exam they don’t know the answers to.”

And, Regina T. was finally successful in lobbying her child’s high school to add a sexting period into the schedule.  “Kids will be kids,” she explained.  “Instead of taking their phones away,we should make it possible for our children to use them as nature intended. We provide the beer at their parties; we also need to allow them to act on their natural curiosity. Isn’t that what education’s all about?”

These and other changes are the result of the school system’s new policy encouraging greater parent involvement, administrator Tom S. told BWN.  “Now, parents can be true partners in their children’s education.  We expect the results will speak for themselves.”

Parents have taken the step of forming an alliance to make sure their voices are heard when it comes to their children and what they can get away with at school.

Do you think of yourselves as “helicopter parents?” BWN asked the leader, Marjorie W.

“We prefer to think of ourselves as Parents Who Give A Shit,” said Marjorie.  “In fact, that’s the name of our group, but you can use the acronym, PAWGAS.”

Why choose that name?

“We wanted to differentiate ourselves from the other group, Parents Who Don’t Give a Shit,” Marjorie explained.

School superintendent, Jane L., summed it up when she told us, “This is a perfect model of a successful parent-school partnership.”