Schools chief apologizes for 'joke' that backfired

[The Straight Story]

HASLETT - If you have any doubts that humor can be a slippery slope these days, have a chat with Haslett schools Superintendent Mike Duda, who stepped on a particularly greasy banana peel last week.
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"It backfired," Duda said of his intention to "provide some levity" to the start of the school year. "If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't. I apologized to the entire staff."

....

The presentation lampooned the kind of phone calls school officials routinely field from parents in the course of a school year. The joke goes like this:

"Hello! You have reached the automated answering service of your school ...

"To lie about why your child is absent, press 1 ...

"To make excuses for why your child did not do his homework, press 2 ...

"To complain about what we do, press 3 ...

"To swear at staff members, press 4 ...

"If you want us to raise your child, press 6 ...

And so on.

But it was the final screen of the presentation that rubbed some people the wrong way:

"If you want this in another language, move to a country that speaks it."

http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20090910/COLUMNISTS09/909100339/-1/newshome

[notadmblnd]

1. this persson has no business being around children

If a person hates kids, they need to stay away from them. Find another profession Mr. School Chief.

[frebrd]

8. "Hates kids"?

There's no question that the last item was extremely ill-advised and unfunny.

All the others were gentle (and in many cases deserved, I'm sure) barbs which were directed at the parents, not the kids, and were funny in my opinion.

[madeline_con]

43. Oh please. The audio was funny. Everything on it was based on facts.

Parents call schools to do the very things listed. Teachers who complain in the teacher'sd lounges across the country don't "hate kids".

[otohara]

2. Funny Stuff

If you want us to raise your child press 6

last one...not so much.

[DrDan]

3. levity? This is supposed to be funny?

As a former teacher, I am appalled. Teaching is hard enough without adding fuel to the fire.

[seabeyond]

4. actually, i can see the truth (funny) in all of it. not offended. the last one i would hold out

because it is a right wing talking point and a huge issue in this country. but all the rest

thumbs up

i let kids have hookie day if they are doing well in fall and spring.... mostly once a year. i call with

held kids out today

no excuse

i hate having to lie or make something up. so i hear them

[frazzled]

5. I would be horribly offended if ...

I was calling to report my kid was missing school because they were hospitalized with a serious illness.

I was calling to ask for a homework excuse because a family member died the evening before.

I was calling to complain that a teacher refused to comply with the audiologist's request to wear a microphone for my hearing-impaired child's amplification device.

I was calling report a case of swine flu.

I can think of a million more reasons for a parent to call a school: to change the date of an IEP meeting, to offer to volunteer in a classroom, to thank a staff member for a kindness to their child the day before. None of these calls deserves the kind of snide greeting outlined in this article.

You (and the superintendent who wrote these horridly offensive phone machine "jokes") seem to have a horrid disrespect and mistrust of parents.

Thumbs up? Thumbs down for each and every one of those lines. I wouldn't want my child in such a dismissive and distrusting school.

[seabeyond]

7. you would be horrified? i can see a trend in each comment in our schools today

i tend to see it more a moment to reflect and think about the issues in our schools... and what we can do about it since it is not conducive to our kids education

i talked to teacher last week about son, asking about an event in class. she immediately went to defensive thinking i was gonna complain or be outraged with her handling, when in fact i was patting her on the back. she could not get off the position of thinking i was an outraged parent and i totally understand why and where she was coming from

horrified?

no i would not be

i would like parents to actually consider their behaviors.

[frazzled]

13. You wouldn't be offended if you called to report your kid had meningitis ...

and the recording greeted you with the assumption that the message you were about to leave was a LIE? As if you weren't under enough stress, you have to be greeted with an insult?

What a lesson such a message system sends: "our first assumption is that you are a lying, lazy, disaffected, irresponsible parent." Way to go.

You really shouldn't be in education, imo.

[seabeyond]

15. no, i would not be offended cause my kids had meningitis and i am not lying and not talking to me.

and also because i understand what the problem is the schools face adn i know why they put that together. no. i would not be offended. might even smile, under all the stress we live.

i am not in education, so that takes care of you minimal analysis of all that i am and represent that puts me in my place

in a box thinking on your part? and you have issue with me, educating? judging another lacking info, and you have issue with me?

self reflect

i can also suggest per your sensitivity, and judgment, you might be just the person this recording is addressing.

[hfojvt]

33. the joke was npt a real recording

it was imagining that the school had a new answering machine that had those 'funny' messages. He TOLD the joke. He didn't actually DO the joke.

[Fastcars]

10. The last line is over the top, but....

Is there any "joke" that someone, somewhere, couldn't take offense to?

[Orangepeel]

23. it wasn't *really* the school's answering machine. It was a joke at a staff meeting

You would be right to be offended if you were actually calling the school for any reason and got a message like that. But as a joke at a staff meeting, it doesn't seem like a big deal.

[JonQ]

24. Sounds like it was a presentation

not the actual answering service.

And they're poking fun of the fact that many parents do these things, I think it's a legit complaint too.

Pretty much any joke could be considered "horribly offensive" by some if they choose to. The only way to avoid being offended would then be to ban all humor. Not a world I'd care to live in.

[Orsino]

9. Yep. There is some humor here...

...but of the sort best shared only with fellow teachers and administrators. I see why it offended.

[seabeyond]

11. the problem is (and i am not suggesting any school do this) that parents

behavior is interferring with our schools system and education of our children as they bitch about that very school system creating a lot of the issues themselves.

the only reason for offense is cause they cannot self reflect. if you understand all these things (except language issue) is an issues in the school it is not offensive....

[Mist]

6. I don't find it offensive--interesting to hear from the school's point of view. nt

[surrealAmerican]

12. This was NOT on the school's voice mail system...

... it was in a presentation to staff members. Most of the respondents here don't seem to understand that.

[seabeyond]

14. interesting facts. for teachers and another country. AND they seem to have same

issues as the schools here.

really

hm

[frazzled]

16. One poster who purports to be a teacher seems to think it was totally appropriate

Whether it actually made it to the phone system or not is irrelevant. It bespeaks an administration that has a very poor attitude towards families of students: it was directed at parents calling in for absences or excuses. Good on the staff for complaining.

[seabeyond]

17. reading comprehension is our friend. if speaking of me, please show me where i say

i am a teacher or in the education business.

[frazzled]

19. I interpreted your line that

you gave kids a hooky day off to mean you were in charge of excusing absences.

I apologize if you are not a teacher and were speaking of letting your own kids off. Personally, I never let my kids stay home unless they were sick. They never wanted to. They enjoyed school, because it was a warm and welcoming environment, and they liked going. And these were not fancy private or suburban schools: I am talking about inner-city, diverse, urban public schools.

[seabeyond]

22. are there little snarky comments in judgment all thru your post? again without any knowledge

or information.

my kids are never sick, so they never get a day off. i give them one. judge me if you will, lol. they are in all ap and pre ap courses. they work their ass off. they are top teir in education. we value and embrace education, academics, intellectualism and learning beyond school environment to such an extent i provide four magazines on a monthly or weekly basis, put on dining room table and we all sit and read, different times in day. a closet and bedroom full of books and frequent trips to library. every evening is a sit down dinner to intellectually converse.

my kids too, go to public and find the schools excellent kick ass with priority for kids. i am a part of their schools, well connected and a part of kids educational environment

alas

my kids like self learning over school environment. like the peace and security and good feel of home over the chaos of school. and they have to just suck it up, and do it anyway

[frazzled]

32. Oh, my my.

I think the snark runs the other way. First, you complain of misinterpreting and yet you misquoted my original post in your header. I said I would be "horribly offended." You quote that back as "horrified." Two extremely different meanings.

I'm glad your kids are in the top "teir": they sound like fine kids who come from a caring environment. Mine (now grown, one working and one in a Ph.D. program in mathematics) were good students, too. One was a National Merit Scholar, the other achieved the rigorous I.B. Diploma.

But the stories about meningitis and the teacher who would not comply with the audiologist's request for the hearing-impaired kid were true. I will not back down on the judgment that a superintendent of schools crossed displayed deplorable attitudes towards the families and children in the district by suggesting that most are lying, whining, non-English speaking complainers. It's not funny, and apparently the teachers and staff at the school found it very unfunny, too. Otherwise, the superintendent would not have had to apologize. I'm actually quite shocked that people here found this funny. You can bet your bottom dollar this superintendent is probably a right-wing ideologue.

[seabeyond]

34. no, there was no snark in my post.

horribly, horrified. one post got it right, one post got it wrong. sorry for the offense.

totally fine with your perception of situation, though i am not with you on it.

any discrimination or unwillingness to see the child interest foremost will have my voice behind child everytime too. so ultimately we agree there.

[JonQ]

25. I think anyone who deals with screaming kids

and their overprotective parents all day, every day, would have to find a way to vent.

Sarcastic humor is preferable to getting up in a clock tower with a sniper rifle.

[madeline_con]

44. Someone will call you on having only two choices, maybe suggest yoga.

:rofl:

[Milspec]

18. Well I thought is was funny

and I did get sort irate when at an Los Angeles company I worked at we had 30 year employs that still needed Spanish translation. And we offered English as a second language for the last 10 years

[Kaleva]

20. I think it's funny and could care less if others found it offensive

[Swamp Rat]

30. ¿Tu piensas realmente que el racismo es divertido, y no te importa que es ofensivo?

¿De vera? :wtf:

[seabeyond]

31. si. wink. lol. nt

[sendero]

39. I agree...

.. this being done at a staff meeting strikes me as the sort of "professional humor" I and my coworkers engage in every day to maintain a shred of sanity.

Except that last one was a bit mean spirited. But most of them are funny and all too true, parents don't back up their kid's teachers any more, they side with their kids. And most of the time that is a mistake.

[Whisp]

21. except for the last one, pretty funny stuff. nt

[JonQ]

26. Pretty funny, the parents are overreacting

and although it's not popular to say, kids that don't speak the language don't tend to do so well in schools.

We had ESL classes in my highschool where kids would be taught in spanish most of the day, with some emphasis on learning english. The idea was to ease them in to it without skipping an education in the mean time. They were complete failures. They learned english slower than kids who were simply mixed with the general population, performed worse on all standardized testing and on top of that it cost a great deal of money to hire teachers fluent in spanish and english, just to teach this small group of kids.

So I could see why school administrators would be annoyed by that.

[yurbud]

27. he doesn't hate kids--just people who speak scary other languages

[Brickbat]

28. I think it's funny, but there's definitely an insider's humor that should not be shared with the

outside, no matter what industry you're in -- education, the media, manufacturing, construction, whatever. Dark humor can be the only thing that gets you through a day sometimes. I've been there. But you don't share it with outsiders; that's asking for trouble. As this guy learned.

[Fire1]

29. Highly inappropriate but the message is on point! lol! n/t

[sam sarrha]

35. I KNOW PEOPLE WHO OPENLY ADMIT TO having the school raise their kids, they cant handle them at all

[seabeyond]

36. i listen to people on du routinely insist on it. i have told kids day one putting them in the

system. i am the parent. i do not hand my role over to the school system, teacher or principal. i take my job seriously.

ergo

i work with system, teacher and principal and has ALL been good. not a single time when a situation has not been addressed or worked out for the good of the child

[sam sarrha]

38. my niece was told to attend parenting classes and dietitian with her husband or a warrant would be

issued for their arrest.. that's how bad it gets, i had a friend that the same thing happened to.. it probably saved the childrens lives.

in maine there are fines up to $1700 for re-offences and the patents pay for the counceling and the classes

[seabeyond]

40. wow,.

it is sad. what i see in the schools. and i am on outside, merely a parent that watches.

[sam sarrha]

41. our country is falling apart... just like the GOP wants it too... Hmmmm...

[seabeyond]

42. ya, well.... i am seeing it from the extreme of both sides.

but i agree.

[Odin2005]

37. I think it's hilarious, and true. Except for that last part.