Calling the school ‘anonymously’

Today I called my daughter’s high school (‘college’ in Kiwispeak). I had her permission to do so, provided the teacher not find out. Not sure of the protocol, I started with her Dean, since we’d become chummy through our recent oops-our-visa-expired-please-don’t-kick-my-daughter-outa-school fiasco. Today I ‘just needed to chat’ about her recent Social Studies exam. She’d prepared really well, after much parental duress, and was well versed in Roman history — particularly the sordid details of the murder of Julius Caesar [pronounced ‘merrrrder’ (roll those r’s!) by her lovely Scottish teacher]. On the day of the test, aforementioned lovely Scot had ‘fallen ill’ [read: was out sick] and the ‘reliever’ [aka. ‘sub’] still gave the exam … which she couldn’t find for the first 15 minutes of class. So, when aforementioned daughter got to the all-important essay question at the end — she was out of time. When she complained upon getting a low score, her teacher had said, ”well, the other kids all finished” (Et tu, Brute?!). The Dean was understanding but suggested I talk with the Department Chair. When I rang her, she was in class. Much to my chagrin, the lovely Scottish voice who’d answered said, “are you sure, I can’t help with your querie?”. I’d by now realised that this was the teacher herself and I guessed she’d surmised who I was, as my daughter’s the only American in the school and I have yet to discover my Kiwi accent. A nice chat ensued, wherein she assured me that she’d adjusted all the test scores, and that my daughter was a lovely, hard-working student who she thoroughly enjoys teaching. We laughed at the fact that neither of us could be incognito on the phone.