One student told a teacher to “f*ck” off. She got after-school detention. Her mom said she couldn’t go. Who’s wrong here?
Okay, there’s much more to the story than that! In a recent “Who’s the A**hole?” Reddit post, one mom vented about the time her 13-year-old daughter, Amanda, who has cerebral palsy, got detention—but how that was an unfair punishment and would put her in harm’s way. She begged the school to reconsider.
“She is able to walk independently but cannot walk for long periods of time and cannot walk on anything other than even ground without assistance (i.e stairs have to have rails, can’t walk on rocks/sand/etc),” the mom explained.
During school one day, her PE teacher had asked her to climb a rock wall, but she said that her IEP said she couldn’t due to her condition. However, apparently the teacher didn’t believe her and became insistent. That’s when Amanda got verbal.
“It is in the handbook that this type of offense is a same day after school detention,” the mom states. “But when the Principal called me I said, ‘absolutely not.’”
The problem was that detention would let her out late, meaning Amanda would have to catch the “late bus.” However, this route would drop her off at a road about a mile away that has no footpath—and that would be detrimental for Amanda.
Mom knew that Amanda was in the wrong for using the language she did, so she offered other consequences. “I told them that they were welcome to do a week’s worth of lunch detentions, or even schedule it so that I can change my work schedule,” she explained.
However, this didn’t go over well. “The principal told me that I was ‘making excuses’ and that Amanda needed to face consequences and I didn’t technically need to give permission – they were making me aware,” Mom wrote.
Most people say Amanda wasn’t in the wrong at all, and even that she does not deserve detention for what she did.
“Your child was absolutely not in her wrong for standing up to an adult male authority figure who was using physically threatening posturing to force compliance.. AFTER he ignored his LEGAL OBLIGATION TO UPHOLD HER MEDICALLY NECESSARY ACCOMMODATIONS. This teacher is the one who needs disciplined,” one person wrote.
“Your daughter stood up for herself against a bully, the school wants to punish her because they hired that bully,” another agreed.
“The kid should not even have lunch detention for saying that to the sub that tried to bully and intimidate her into a dangerous situation that could easily have caused her severe injury while violating her legal rights,” someone else wrote.
You can read the entire thread—and all the comments—here!
What are your thoughts on what happened and how the school handled the situation? Should Amanda get detention? Who is the jerk in this situation?
[Image credit: Deposit Photos]