Teacher Called Into Principal's Office After Refusing To Give Out Her Personal Address To A Student's Parents
She can't help but wonder how many parents are ignorant to the reality of teachers' lives.
pkujiahe, pixelshot / CanvaPro Teachers aren’t typical corporate employees. Many admit to having their personal lives and identities intertwined with the work they do.
A teacher on Reddit revealed one boundary she’s created to ensure separation from work and home: never sharing her personal address. Unfortunately, parents don't always understand the need to separate the classroom from personal life and it can make the job much more difficult.
The teacher was forced to deal with furious parents after refusing to give out her personal address for a graduation announcement.
“No joke. A parent wanted to send me a graduation announcement for their kid, which is awesome… I genuinely think their kid is freaking amazing,” this teacher wrote. “However, I told them to just send it to the school and I’ll get it.”
While she wanted to celebrate this student and receive the announcement, she wasn’t comfortable giving out her personal address — a completely valid boundary for a teacher to have. A corporate professional at a desk job wouldn’t be required to give out their address to a client or a co-worker, right?
After requesting an address to send the card, this teacher asked the parents to send it to the school because she 'wasn’t comfortable giving out my information.’
Despite the seemingly clear boundary, the parents pushed back against this teacher's refusal. “They said they felt like I was calling them a stalker or a danger.”
While their anger was misguided, the parents' ire is exactly why she created the boundary in the first place.
Pavel Danilyuk / CanvaPro
With heightened emotions, parental investments, and student behavior in today’s classrooms — it’s no surprise that this teacher is extra protective over that information.
The parents were offended by her request, saying it would ‘mean more’ if sent to the teacher’s home address.
After continuing to request her information, she politely declined, “hoping they’d understand” the reason behind her refusal. Thinking everything was okay after their conversation, she was confused when called to the principal’s office later that week.
“I got called to my principal’s office and had a meeting with [the parents] because they were upset,” she wrote. “My principal didn’t know this was coming because the parent lied to them about what the meeting was about.”
Once the principal was enlightened to the nature of the discussion, they quickly backed up this teacher, telling the parents that she wasn’t “mandated” to give any personal information out to anyone.
“These parents have no idea,” one commenter noted. “Why don’t they follow up to ask for your bank routing number and social security number, too?” While their comment had a funny tone, it's a valid point.
This teacher has a right to privacy and was validly concerned for her safety.
While these parents, and clearly this teacher, know this child is exceptional and likely wouldn't misuse her information, her boundary should still stand. With the state of schools today, especially student behavior in the classroom, teachers now have to expect and prepare for much scarier situations.
Of course, these parents never intended to use her personal address for anything other than a graduation announcement, but in the wrong hands, that information could put her at risk. Every single day, teachers enter schools and classrooms that are undoubtedly unsafe.
So, by not providing her personal address to students and parents, this teacher is protecting her safest place — her home. She deserves to keep that separate from her work. It's a boundary that’s incredibly important for her health, well-being, and safety.
It’s something that parents should respect, even if they aren’t fully capable of understanding the impact and importance it has for teachers today.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a news and entertainment writer at YourTango focusing on pop culture analysis and human interest stories.