Since I didn't recognize the name, I did not think I had any connections to the family as a teacher. Then my principal texted me; it was one of my families. The mother had divorced/remarried since I'd had her son in my class so I had not recognized her name. (I also used to babysit the mom when I was a teenager and she was a child.)
Jane was not a stable person, and her first husband, the one I knew, had a lengthy police record. (The kids are now with him; not good.) I only had the son for a year, and it did not end well. I caught him cheating multiple times and she felt I was picking on him. It didn't matter that I had physical proof (he'd plagiarized a paper off the internet that he presented as his own work) yet somehow I was the problem and picking on her son. (He had told me that she knew he was using the paper off the internet; perhaps that added fuel to her ire.)
After two incidents where she blew up at me over his cheating (and with the full support of my principal), I quit telling her about other cheating and handled things directly with him in the classroom. She hadn't wanted to hear it and certainly was not supportive in trying to help me help her son. The school year ended on a sour note with Jane but a better one with her son.
I feel sad that I will never run into her in the grocery or around town and have the opportunity to maybe have a cordial hello-type conversation. But, there is nothing I can do about it now.
Jane's obituary in in a previous post.
