At some point, every school reaches its breaking point — and one high school in Queensland, Australia, did it in style!
The staff at Maroochydore High School were done dealing with endless complaints from parents. Instead of sending home yet another letter that would probably get ignored, they decided to update their school’s voicemail. But this wasn’t your average “Leave a message after the beep” kind of thing… oh no.
The school had recently introduced a new policy where both students and parents were held responsible for absences and unfinished homework. Sounds fair, right? Well, not everyone thought so! Some parents were so upset, they even tried suing the school — demanding their kids’ failing grades be changed, even though those same kids had skipped 15 to 30 days of class and barely lifted a pencil!
So, the school’s new voicemail went a little something like this:
RIIIINNNGGG…
CLICK!
“Hello! You’ve reached the automated answering service for your school. Please listen carefully to the following options:
Press 1 if you’d like to lie about why your child is absent.
Press 2 to make excuses for why your child didn’t do their homework.
Press 3 to complain about how we do our job.
Press 4 if you feel the need to swear at our staff.
Press 5 if you missed the information we sent out in newsletters and flyers.
Press 6 if you expect us to raise your child for you.
Press 7 if you want to reach through the phone and slap someone.
Press 8 if you’re requesting a new teacher for the third time this year.
Press 9 to complain about bus transportation.
Press 0 to complain about school lunches.
If you’ve finally realized that this is the real world — where your child is responsible for their own behavior, homework, and grades — and that it’s not the teacher’s fault when your child doesn’t put in the effort… please hang up and have a wonderful day!
Oh, and for service in another language? Please move to a country that speaks it.
Thank you for supporting public education!”
Now THAT’S what you call setting the record straight!
Wouldn’t it be great if more schools had this level of honesty?
