Oh, no she di-ENT!

I know my school is pretty odd a lot of the time, usually in terms of school or faculty, but today? Today it was the out of control parents! The parents who don't insist on their children doing homework, don't want sports to have scores, and don't want to be bothered with the likes of me, a silly teacher, troubling them for trivial things such as their child's welfare or academic performance. Silly teacher!
But today? Today it reached a new level. There were cops called over these parents. But we should start at the beginning and I will try to make this as simple as possible by limiting it to ten steps.

1. Parents wanted to celebrate teachers' birthdays in a particular grade level. Not for the benefit of the teacher, mind you, but to try to out-do one another in the neighborhood.

2. One teacher had the audacity to have her birthday here at the end of the school year when there are so many other important things going on. Parties! Field Day! Yearbooks! Priorities.

3. Parents requested to celebrate said teacher's anniversary instead of her birthday so that it didn't interfere with their children's festivities. Clearly an understandable need.

4. Teacher complied agreeably, as most of us don't want our birthdays made over anyway. Parents threw teacher an anniversary luau. I'm not kidding. It was back in the winter and it was nicer than my prom. But I digress.

5. Today was when it all came to a head. What came to a head, you might ask? That's what I wondered when I heard that parents were all in a public fight. Over what? I thought. Hmmm. One might wonder... grades? No, we don't have any. Administration? No, they let the parents run the school. Next year's teachers? Hmmmm.....actually? It was over that aforementioned teacher's birthday. For real.

6. Which brings us to number 6. Long story short (too late), one parent accused another of dropping the ball on the teacher's birthday, despite the luau, and a vicious name-calling, character defaming email war copied to all of the parents and teachers ensued. Oh, yeah! Now, at this point in the year this makes great gossip for the teachers - it's a fabulous reprieve from measuring one another's eye rolls and holding up the number of fingers to show how many days are left in the year. We've been gathered in small groups hissing about it all day, until the Big Event.

7. The two primary warring factions met in the hallway during the school day. Are you ready for this? One of them? Had the audacity to bring in cupcakes to the teacher without telling anyone and despite the luau! [collective gasp] Can you believe? A massive fight ensued. We're talking yelling, finger waving, leaning into one another, and a prevailing "oh, no, you di-ENT!" vibration.

8. Except they did it in front of the office. The principal was about to have her retirement party after school, hosting many of the higher-ups from the district.

9. Just before the fight became physical, the principal called the cops who escorted the parents off the property. ROCK ON!

10. Most of the teachers were just upset that no one called them to go watch the brawl. It was the most fun thing that's happened all week! Could we be more white trash at my school that wants to be cappucino club so bad it hurts? I loved it. It made my day.

Most schools have to call cops to deal with unruly students. In the suburbs? It's those Keepin' Up With the Joneses parents you gotta worry about. I'm still snickering 5 hours later...six more days.