The big lie: ‘I wasn’t cheating’

I always tried to gently amend these statements, not “the grade I gave your child but the grade your child earned.” An enormous number of the children who had low grades — I’d say two-thirds — were children whom I had caught cheating on chapter tests.

I followed a strict policy (authorized not only by the student code of conduct but explicitly blessed by top-level school administration) of giving a “zero” on any test where I caught the student cheating.

In a grading period where tests and the semester exam could count as much as 60 percent of the grade, one zero would easily drop a student’s grade to failing when other items already were marginal. Thus, when conference night came, every slot was full, and extras would just show up asking if they could be “squeezed in.”

Many, and I mean many, of these conferences boiled down to the parent denying that their child cheated and accusing me of “just having it in for my child.” Often, a “retake” would be asked for, and often I would allow it.

However, the retake would not be identical to the first test, just a differentiated version, administered after school with my careful supervision. Sometimes the retakes worked out very well for the student, but the ones who didn’t prepare the first time often did as poorly or poorer the second time.

Not that there weren’t some excellent supportive parents who occasionally would show up at conferences and support me, once they understood the situation.

But here was the guts of the problem: Students caught cheating always deny this to their mothers, except when there was a very astute mother involved, which was very rare.

The typical conference-night parent blamed me as being unfair. The “race card” nearly invariably come up if the complaining parent was a different race than myself.

Many conferences elicited the true underlying agenda — which was the demand for a better grade so that an opportunity to be involved in a favorite sport or activity would not be lost.

When this didn’t work, off the parent went to the counseling office to seek a change of schedule. Sometimes the administration would back me up but often, taking the line of least resistance, the change would be allowed.

Know what the upshot of this practice was? Other children all got informed of the cave-in, and their parents would intensify their efforts and complaints about me as a teacher.

Administrators, when confronted by an angry and/or manipulative parent, would bend over backwards to assuage that parent, even when they were fully aware of the parent’s non-factual claims and/or less-than-honorable motivation.

A favorite threat to the building administrator was to go over that administrator’s head (the bald statement of “I know people at the superintendent’s office” was very common).

I would have waited longer to take my retirement if parental interference like this didn’t constantly occur.

Roberts O. Bennett of Atlanta is a retired teacher.