NCEA workshop helps teachers deal with difficult parents

Published: 2006-04-24

ATLANTA (CNS) -- Teachers and principals often have to deal with difficult parents, but few were as difficult as one who confronted Aloysius Grote, now principal of St. Dominic Elementary School in Cincinnati. At the time, Grote was principal of a 975-boy, all-freshman school. Early one morning, he heard "one bad word after another," he recalled. It was the father of a student. Grote invited him into his office. While the parent accepted, he refused Grote's invitation to sit down. "He pulled out a .38 pistol, cocked it and pointed it at my nose," Grote said. "It took me 27 minutes to talk him out of the gun." Why was the father so upset? "Another ninth-grader was picking on his son, and he was there to get it taken care of," Grote said. Grote told the story at a packed April 20 workshop on working with difficult parents during the April 18-21 National Catholic Educational Association convention in Atlanta. As it turned out, it was the man's son who had been picking on the other student, Grote said.

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