A Parent Tells A Teacher That ‘Kids Will Be Kids’ After A Group Of Middle School Boys Showed Up At Her House At Night
Not only was she feeling unsupported, she was feeling unsafe.
David Pereiras / CanvaPro The demands and responsibilities of teachers go far beyond educating young minds — they also manage misbehavior, safety concerns, emotional burdens, poor infrastructure, and recently controversial conversations in their industry, just to name a few. Of course, they’re also overworked and under-compensated — a label that’s seemed to be integrated into the profession at this point.
That said, teachers deserve their free time to relax and decompress. However, one teacher's Sunday night was disrupted by a group of students who showed up at her home uninvited and unannounced.
A group of middle school boys showed up at the teacher's house late at night, and their parents didn't care.
“Middle school teacher here. Tonight, around 9:30 p.m., kids banged on my front door. Looking at my doorbell camera, I recognized three of my students,” the teacher wrote on Reddit. “The one who knocked, one who was recording with a phone, and one who was encouraging/watching.”
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Unamused, especially as she’d just put her young kids to bed, the teacher refused to open the door and address the middle school boys. Not only was their presence a huge invasion of privacy, but it also felt like a safety concern.
As they were recording her front door, with her address, she could only imagine what they’d planned to do once she opened the door. Ignoring them as best as she could, the educator couldn’t help but feel rageful when they made the back of her house a few minutes later.
After she recognized the boys on her doorbell camera, the teacher emailed their parents and the principal.
The teacher was at her breaking point when she heard another round of knocks on her back door. “I immediately drafted emails to the parents of the students,” she wrote.
“[Your son] just banged on the front and back doors at my home with some friends. 9:30 on Sunday evening while my children were going to bed,” she wrote in the email, CCing the principal. “If you could please speak to [him] about keeping appropriate boundaries, I would appreciate it.”
However, instead of acknowledging this teacher’s boundaries or addressing how absurd it is to show up unannounced at a teacher’s home — the parents seemed to disregard her request completely.
“The parent of one of the kids, who has been suspended multiple times this year for both weapons and drugs on campus, immediately responded with a message that literally included the phrase, ‘Kids will be kids,’” she revealed.
Boundaries for any professional are essential to cultivating a healthy work-life balance, but for teachers, the discussion takes an even greater sense of urgency and importance. It is crucial to keep teachers' personal and professional lives separate and ensure their privacy and safety when they leave school.
“This is one of my biggest frustrations in the education field,” one teacher, known as @splashofjai on TikTok, said. Social media has opened the door for students to stalk and violate all professional boundaries for teachers. They can not decipher between healthy boundaries and borderline-stalking… Teachers have lives and should not be restricted because of a chosen profession.”
While school districts and administrators might not be legally responsible for situations that happen “outside of school,” they do have a moral obligation to protect their employees and students.
Despite the severity of the situation, the teacher revealed that the parents and principal did nothing, partly because it happened off school grounds.
“What, if anything, can I expect my district to do to stop this behavior?” she questioned. “In the past, the district has not gotten involved in anything happening off school property.”
Despite the offenses these students had been previously caught doing on campus — and the video evidence of them showing up at her home — neither the students’ parents nor the school district has made any moves to reprimand their behavior. Instead, this teacher is forced to reinforce her physical boundaries and ensure her own safety.
“Call the police and document the behavior,” one commenter suggested, admitting that it’s probably a better option than begging school administrators to help. “If it persists or escalates, you’ll at least have a record of it.
Studies show an alarming percentage of teachers who deal with similar behavior, including more intense situations of stalking and physical advances — many who fail to gain support from their districts.
Ultimately, this teacher’s story serves as an unfortunate reminder of the reality for many educators within the industry and the importance of teaching children to respect the boundaries of others, including their teachers.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a News & Entertainment Writer at YourTango who focuses on health & wellness, social policy, and human interest stories.