'AITA for refusing to include another child in advanced math tutoring for my son?'
"AITA for refusing to include another child in advanced math tutoring for my son?"
My older son (12m) is very interested in math and has the aptitude to match. Not a huge surprise, as I was the same and went on to get advanced degrees in a quantitative field. Due to my wife's job, we relocated to a smaller town. The public schools have become a mess, so we enrolled him in what is regarded as the academically strongest private school in the area.
It's OK, but not nearly as good as the public school in our old home city. We supplemented son's math with an online program last year, at which he excelled. Math at school was a total waste, but he could afford the lost time. He has a lot of interests (music, coding, bouldering, baseball, etc) and now his homework load is increasing.
Time is scarce and he can't double up on math using evening time. We asked the school if he could just use his math period to go to the library and get ahead on homework, but they refused (no one to supervise was the reason given).
And doing synchronous online math in the library won't work, because his schedule is "block" and the time of day he does math moves around. My office (I'm remote) is a 3 minute walk from the school (on purpose - picked for drop-off ease!), so I asked if I could take charge of his math education, in the library. School agreed.
My son asked if I would consider including one classmate, “Jane”. He vouched for her math skill, interest and work ethic. I asked her parents if I could review her assessment results and “evaluate” her myself. She wasn’t quite up to where my son is, but close enough that I could make it work, and she seemed very hard-working and enthusiastic.
So far, so good. A few weeks into this, I get a call from the school. The parents of another student, “Joe”, are upset that he was not offered a chance to participate. My son’s sense was that Joe doesn’t like math especially and is poorly behaved.
I didn’t really want another kid, but I asked to see his assessments before I said no, because I assumed they’d show he wasn’t ready and I could decline on non-subjective grounds. His parents shared, and indeed he is just at grade level.
When I declined, his parents got quite upset. They called the school to complain about “favoritism.” They called and berated me, too; insisted that if I took “Jane” then I needed to take all comers; that I was discriminating against their child (we are all same race/religion). I wouldn’t budge.
They asked the school not to allow the accommodation for my son and Jane. I told the school that if I got anymore guff, my kid was just going to do online school (he was admitted to a very high-level online program, but decided to only take one evening computer science class).
The parents are badmouthing me to all who will listen. At first I was silent, but now I respond that “Joe” did not demonstrate aptitude for advanced math in my view and would not be able to keep up. So, AITA for refusing to include Joe? AITA for giving Joe’s lack of aptitude as a reason?
Here are comments and OP's responses:
YTA, but not directly because you don't want to tutor Joe. The bigger picture is that your helicopter is hovering a bit low. The other kids are apparently barely good enough to be in the room with him (with Jane, "I could make it work.") Good grief--do you realize how snotty that all sounds? I'm guessing not.
Back off a bit. Your son has to attend this school the rest of the day, remember? You being an absolutely judgmental math snob and micromanaging will not make this easy for him.
Secret_Birthday8452 OP responded:
The desire to do all this extra stuff comes entirely from my son. I'd actually love for him to dial it back on some of this stuff, but that's just his personality. Very intense, very curious. It costs a lot of money, too!
As for how it was received by the other kids... well, the one really good thing about this school is how supportive the kids are of each other. His friends are happy for him that gets to do the math he wants. Even Joe himself does not have any problem with my son. It's the parents that are the problem, not the kid.
I also have to say, that after the first time they passed along Joe's parents' demand, the school admin has been supportive and good to work with. My issue now is just with Joe's parents' badmouthing me, and I guess my question is whether I have handled that well or been petty by pointing out how Joe's math aptitude seemed too low to me to make it work.
Because I know that "stings" for them, and I can't honestly say if I am telling people that because it is true or because it will hurt and annoy Joe's asshole parents.
As an educator myself, I’m shocked that the school is allowing OP to pull their child and classmate from a core subject. I can say definitely that this would not happen at a public school and a strong motivator here is the desire not to lose OP’s tuition dollars.
Tell your son that you're only going to keep teaching him and Jane. If any others want in just tell them you can't teach more than the two that you are. If this keeps going into next year you might want to also consider dropping Jane and really just doing this for your child. Just less of a headache.
Secret_Birthday8452 OP responded:
Yes, sort of regretted allowing Jane, too, because of the trouble. But, it turns out she is a really fantastic budding mathematician and was only a bit behind my son because he had the outside courses and she didn't. At this point, I'd feel bad dropping her. SHe has a lot of potential.
NTA - this is for the school to fix. Two words - "legal action". In my opinion the school has done so many things wrong here its crazy. Why on earth did they disclose who you are until they found out if you would do this? You are not their employee.
Threaten to sue and they will be very willing to work with you and shut down those other parents.
Secret_Birthday8452 OP responded:
I wasn't super clear in the main post, apologies. The school has been pretty good about this. When I refused the first time and said that I needed to be able to do this or we'd have to switch to online, they accepted that and have been supportive and have not pushed me further to accommodate "Joe."
Issue is now Joe's parents and how they won't let it go, badmouth me to others, etc. Frankly, they are probably doing their own reputation more damage than mine, but it is still aggravating to have someone talking smack about you.
At the end of the day you are a personal tutor. You have no obligations to take on more students. Frankly, I would confront them on this. Bully's hate being confronted.
Could you develop an assessment that would (hopefully) weed out the kid that is causing the ruckus?
Secret_Birthday8452 OP responded:
Yeah, I looked at MAP assessment scores, but I didn't have a cut-off. But basically, Joe was in like 60th %ile (and yes, his parents did VOLUNTARILY share the scores with me) while Jane and my kid were 99+
Info: Are you getting paid for this?
No, not being paid! They couldn't afford me :) Most of the parents here don't seem particularly exercised about getting their kid to "the top of the class" in the way that parents in NY or Boston might. That's just not the culture. Joe's parents, not coincidentally perhaps, are, like us, transplants from a bigger, more competitive and educational-anxiety-ridden city.
NTA, but you kind of come across as a d-bag when talking about how great your son is and somewhat condescending at your surprise that "Jane" is on par with him.
Secret_Birthday8452 OP responded:
Well, my son has gotten extra tuition for a couple of years. I'm impressed with Jane because she has excelled without any extra instruction. Fully expect that after a year with me, they should be neck and neck.