We can probably all agree that teachers consistently go above and beyond.
Doing overtime, buying school supplies with their own money... these are just some ways teachers extend themselves on a truly pittance salary.
But one teacher has firmly reached her limit around what's being asked of her outside of her job description — and she's calling it out.
Sharing a video on TikTok in a now viral post, Katie Larson has opened up about an incident with one of her students' parents that pushed her to the brink.
At first, Katie thought that the parent had a fairly simple request, which she was happy to oblige.
"Yesterday a parent asked me for a class list so they can invite all the kids to the birthday party, and I'm invited to the birthday party too," she said.
"Very nice, [I] said 'no problem'. Today, the stack of invitations came and I was like, 'I guess I'll just put these in the mailboxes later.'"
Whilst Katie probably had plenty of other things on her to-do list, she was more than willing to place the invitations in the envelopes and pop them into each student's locker.
"So, no problem, we're outside all day," she said.
Watch: The one task this teacher refuses to do. Story continues below.
"The last 20 minutes of the day, I was going to do it. I was going to stuff the invitations in the envelopes — stuff them because they weren't stuffed — and then put them in the mailboxes."
It was then that Katie realised she was being asked to do a lot more.
"I opened them up, only the first invitation was written on, none of the rest," she said.
"That parent messaged me during the day with the information and I thought that was for me because I was invited. No — I was expected to write all the invitations."
Without ever being asked if she would be willing to take on this task outside of her actual job, Katie was understandably a little taken aback by the brazen display from the parent.
"No," she said. "I responded, 'I can't write all these invitations out', and I sent them home with the class list. Nope. Not what I can do."
Almost 500,000 views later, Katie's video has received a loud and resounding cry of support, with many jumping in the comments section to back her up.
Among the most common responses were people who agreed that this parent was incredibly out of touch and clearly had no grasp on the huge workload that teachers are tasked with each day.
"Absolutely NOT," wrote one user. "The audacity is loud."
"What the heck made a parent think that was okay?" wrote another.
"I can't believe they thought you would do that," wrote another user.
Beyond the shock, however, was an influx of anecdotes from other teachers who had been asked to do similar 'admin' jobs for parents and — wow.
"Same thing happened to me!" wrote one user. "And then the day of, the mum sent an email to me cancelling the party and told me to tell the kids and their parents to just drop off the presents on the front porch."
"I once had a parent send in a whole birthday cake, no plates, no napkins, no forks, no knife," said another.
"I had a parent expect me to throw a party in-class for their kid," wrote one teacher.
Other teachers noted that they were often expected to go the extra mile on Valentine's Day in order to prepare gifts and cards for students.
"This happens all the time with Valentine's," wrote one commenter. "They just send in a sealed box of Valentine cards and expect teachers to write names on them and stuff them in envelopes."
"This happens every Valentine's Day!" wrote another. "It doesn't matter how many times I give the instructions. There’s at least one parent that sends in a box of Valentine’s Day cards, not filled out."
One teacher said that they now just flat out decline being involved in anything to do with students' birthday invites or celebrations.
"I refuse to take any part in birthday invites," they wrote. "It's not my job."
Honestly... we commend the excellent boundary setting.
The sad reality of Katie's TikTok is that it illuminates how overworked teachers are, and how tone deaf some parents can be regarding their roles and responsibilities.
Across the world teachers are lucky if they can get in a lunch break, let alone write out invitations for their students' birthday party.
Let this be a reminder that we do not deserve teachers and — louder for the people in the back — let's pay them more!
Feature Image: Canva.
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Top Comments
And I agree about the admin tasks, too. Once there were teacher's assistants to do that work, but that job has changed to mostly assisting children with learning difficulties and the slack has not been picked up by employing more admin staff, but rather lumped on the teachers.