This might be the problem.

Today was Parent/Teacher conference day. This was also known as Wednesday at the middle and high schools, because no parents bothered to show up. In my Bitter Half's class, he only had 5 no-shows out of nineteen, which is remarkably good.

His most notable exchange was with the mother of his worst student. This kid is a mean, nasty bully who lives to disrupt class, lie, and quote South Park. He also likes to pretend he's a gangster and shouts, "Yo, my niggaz!" to other kids. (We have one Black kid in school. She's in kindergarten.) He loves to pretend he is shooting people with imaginary guns. Unless you've been comatose for the past ten years, it is common knowledge that this is absolutely verboten in the school system. He even smuggled an AirSoft gun into school in his backpack, only to be rewarded with a shopping trip from his parents, who believed his transparent lie that he "didn't know it was in there".

Anyway, his violent and disruptive behaviors have escalated, and nothing within the schoolwide behavior system has made a dent, because there are no repercussions at home. When his mother was told of this, she shrugged and casually replied, " Oh, that's his dad's fault. They play those violent games on the X-Box all the time. I'd smash the thing with a sledgehammer, but we paid too much money for it."

Oh, okay.