Grade disputes are increasingly taking U.S. parents from the classroom to the courtroom. A growing number are challenging teachers’ assessments, with some cases escalating into lawsuits over report card comments, academic performance and even accusations of AI use.
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When Weiwei Luo saw the report card saying her son needed to work on “cooperating with others,” the Silicon Valley mom demanded it be changed. When the school district declined, she called her lawyer.
What began last fall as a playground spat between third-graders has now escalated into a courtroom brawl: In a lawsuit filed in October, Luo calls the teacher’s comments “inaccurate and unsubstantiated,” and is asking a judge to order the district to rehear her case.
Time was when parents disciplined children for bringing home bad marks. Today, they often take a more adversarial approach, educators say, leaning on teachers and administrators to change grades in disputes that can even spill into court.
Ever since remote learning brought classrooms into living rooms during the pandemic, U.S. parents have grown more involved in and less enchanted with schools, according to numerous surveys. That includes scrutinizing how teachers evaluate their children.
Four in 10 American teachers report facing pressure from moms and dads to change grades, according to a 2024 EdWeek survey of a nationally representative sample of 1,500 educators. Affluent parents, teachers noted, were more likely to complain.
Esther Wojcicki, a retired Palo Alto teacher and author of “How to Raise Successful People,” said parents have a newfound sense of self-righteousness in protecting their children. “Especially if they get a bad grade,” she added, “the parents go to battle for them.”
That pushback is pushing some teachers over the edge. In Nashville, Tenn., Samira Hardcastle, a teacher of the year, became an internet sensation this year when she quit. Her resignation letter accused district officials of fabricating a grade to “appease an irate parent” whose child had repeatedly failed to turn in an art assignment in Hardcastle’s class at John F. Kennedy Middle School.
“There’s no accountability, so they learn that it doesn’t matter what their work ethic is,” Hardcastle told The Wall Street Journal. “That’s going to be a tough lesson when they get into the real world and realize it doesn’t work that way.”
A spokesman for Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools said it wasn’t “accurate to characterize this as the district simply changing a student’s grade at a parent’s request.” Sean Braisted said administrators stepped in to give the student another chance to finish the assignment, and independently graded the project.
Fueling this friction is the narrow path into a top U.S. university, argues Rowena Chiu, a Palo Alto school board member and mother of four. “To get your child into an elite university these days seems more impossible than ever,” she said. “I think that does trickle down into nervousness about a particular grade.”
In one recent case, Takashi Kato, the founder and CEO of a Silicon Valley artificial-intelligence startup, sued the Palo Alto Unified School District in federal court after AI-detection software flagged an essay his son turned in as “76% AI.” The tenth-grade English teacher let him redo the assignment, on Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible,” but she gave him a D on the retake, bringing his final grade down to a C.
Kato fought back. He submitted to the district a 1,162-page packet showing the sophomore’s “drafting and revision process,” which he argued proved his son had done nothing wrong, the suit said. The suit said that detection software can be biased against non-native English writers. He offered to accept a B to resolve the dispute.
The district wasn’t persuaded and in March, Kato hired a lawyer. In his lawsuit, he argued that an “academic dishonesty” record could affect college admissions and more. After months of litigation, Kato dropped the suit in September. Kato declined to comment.
Lynette White, a spokeswoman for Palo Alto schools, said the district doesn’t comment on litigation, but added there was no settlement.
Also in Palo Alto, the Walter Hays Elementary School strife included a game of tag at recess. A third-grade boy stuck out his tongue at another student who kicked him, and then grew frustrated when his teacher didn’t believe the kick was intentional, according to court filings.
On his report card, the teacher wrote that the boy was “working on his responses to peers when he is frustrated” and “developing his ability to listen to others’ perspectives and collaborate with humility.”
The mom, Luo, hired a lawyer and complained to the school board that the incident didn’t justify the comments. The board disagreed, saying the remarks “reflected the teacher’s observations, were within her competence, were substantiated, and were not misleading,” according to the suit.
But Luo claims the hearing wasn’t fair because her attorney was disconnected from the video call. She didn’t respond to requests for comment and her lawyer declined to comment.
White, the district spokeswoman, said there is a process for parents to challenge grades. “The district follows that process and will respond to the petition in court,” White said.
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Leaving a good job can feel like a risk, but staying may come with its own opportunity cost. As workers become more cautious about changing careers, knowing when to step away, maintain professional connections and leave the door open for a comeback has never been more important.
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Americans are death-gripping their jobs. A lack of options is only part of the reason.
It’s certainly true that opportunities to job hop have waned. The quit rate has been at or below 2% for 14 straight months, according to federal data. We haven’t had a stretch like this in a decade.
But recall that during the “great resignation,” a lot of quitters weren’t leaving for different jobs. Plenty stepped away to travel, start a business or focus on family. And they did it with confidence that they could boomerang back to the same, or similar, roles they left.
Today, that confidence is badly shaken. The disappearing belief that you can return to your previous rung on the career ladder is the other cause of workers’ paralysis.
But some are bold enough to walk away from a plum position, and there is an art to leaving the door open for a career comeback. Some of it is mental, some tactical. If you’re contemplating a break or change, there are strategies to overcome the natural fear you are feeling.
I’ve gone through it myself. I am sweating my way through a version of this concern as I write what is my final “On the Clock” column. I plan to work less and parent more as my wife returns to a full-time office job. After 11 years—and 11 children birthed, adopted or fostered—it’s her turn to come first professionally.
I’m excited for both of us, in no small part because I get to stay at The Wall Street Journal in a different role. I’ll anchor a revamped Careers & Leadership newsletter, coming soon to an email inbox near you. (You can sign up for the newsletter here in advance of the switch.) Still, it isn’t lost on me that the columnist’s role I am leaving is the kind of job that might come along only once in a career.
Many of you have faced something similar.
“There’s the fear of the musical chairs problem, which is really acute in our culture,” says Sabra Meretab, who was chief of staff of Stripe’s payments engineering division when she quit to travel and write a memoir in 2024. “It’s a really legitimate concern that, if I leave, what are the odds that there is still a chair for me when I return?”
In Meretab’s case, there was. She returned to her former company 18 months later.
Not everyone will be so lucky. But the thought of picking up where you left off shouldn’t be top of mind. Instead, think of this: The role you’re in could be a once-in-a-career kind of job. What if the thing tempting you to leave is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?
“We fear the irreversibility of leaving and the opportunity cost of that, but we completely overlook the irreversibility of staying and the opportunity costs that are associated with that,” Meretab says.
Entering her 30s, she worried that the window to globe-trot as a freewheeling single might be closing. A career sabbatical would be harder to pull off later if she had a partner and children.
She concluded that she would regret missing her shot at adventure more than she would regret forfeiting a great job, even if she couldn’t get it back.
It’s hubris to think you are irreplaceable. At the same time, high performers don’t grow on trees.
Jawad Mourabet tries to keep this in mind as he runs his fledgling business, Velto Pickleball Club in Brooklyn, after leaving McKinsey & Co. earlier this year. He told me in March that he was giving himself two years to make it work when we spoke for a column about entrepreneurship.
He reports Velto is profitable, so he isn’t thinking about how to get his old job back. But could he, if he needed or wanted to?
“I actually think I’d be in a better position now to become a partner at McKinsey than if I had stayed,” he says.
This self-assurance is the result of a mindset shift. Like many who vied for and landed a competitive position, Mourabet internalized the sense that he was lucky to be there. Over time, though, he came to recognize his value. Maybe McKinsey was lucky to have him.
He reasons that if he was good enough the first time, he’d likely be good enough a second time—possibly even more so, with firsthand experience running a business.
Meanwhile, his pickleball club is a popular destination for some of his former colleagues. That helps keep those relationships warm.
And networking, post-exit, is key to keeping your options open, says digital sales executive Shannon Leiro. She met regularly with a mentor when she stepped away for two years to start a family. She also monitored industry trends closely and, when she noticed a major shift, determined she couldn’t afford to prolong her hiatus.
“I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I better get back in before I become obsolete,’ ” Leiro says.
Chika Uwazie, former chief executive of a technical recruiting startup, thinks she has more runway. She has spent the past few years creating content, including a podcast, newsletter and forthcoming book, “Timeline Grief,” about failing to hit milestones on schedule.
Still, whenever someone reaches out to gauge her interest in returning to the recruiting industry, she makes time for a conversation, even if she doesn’t expect it to go anywhere.
“I always take calls,” Uwazie says. “I think if you’re building your contacts, you can go back. I think the issue is when you are so focused on the new thing that you become disconnected.”
One caution: You don’t want to earn a reputation as someone who leads people on or wastes their time.
But if you are honest about your intentions, peeking back through the door you left open can help ensure it doesn’t slam shut forever.
