What Happens When High School Co-Curricular Leadership Goes To Teacher Favorites: A Parent’s Perspective
The paint-stained script hit my kitchen counter so hard the salt shaker rattled. It was a Tuesday, I was folding my 15-year-old’s pile of faded hoodies, halfway through stirring their favorite garlic mac and cheese for dinner. Riley, third year of high school, just leaned against the fridge and stared at the floor, jaw tight. “They gave it to Lila,” they said. I already knew what “it” was: head director of the spring main stage drama show, the position Riley had talked about nonstop since August.
Lila’s mom is the head of the school’s English department, and she’s been the go-to pick for every drama leadership spot since freshman year. I’d heard Riley come home week after week saying Lila missed half the fall production meetings, left early every set build night, spent rehearsals scrolling TikTok while Riley ran lines with new freshmen and rewrote clunky dialogue to fit the cast. Riley had put in 10 hours a week for two months, even skipped their best friend’s birthday weekend to help run spring show auditions. When the drama teacher announced the leadership team at Monday’s meeting, Lila was head director. Riley got “assistant props coordinator.”
I didn’t say anything stupid at first, like “it’s just drama club” or “there’s always next year.” I turned off the stove, walked over, and hugged them. That night, they didn’t come out of their room for dinner. I left the mac and cheese on their dresser with a chocolate chip cookie, and didn’t push them to talk. A week later, I found a crumpled note tucked in the pocket of Riley’s jeans when I was doing laundry. It said, “Why even bother trying anything when the people who are supposed to see you don’t. I don’t see the point of any of this.” My throat went tight. That’s the thing no one tells you about 15: when their first big unfair hit happens, it doesn’t just make them sad. It can tip an already wobbly mental health balance straight into dark places.
I booked a check-in with our therapist that day, but before that, I went and sat on the end of Riley’s bed while they scrolled TikTok. I said, “I found your note in the laundry. I’m glad you wrote that down, even if it’s scary. This hurts so bad that it makes you think there’s no point, and that’s okay to feel. I’m not here to tell you to cheer up. I just want to know what you want to do next.” Riley said they wanted to quit drama entirely. I didn’t argue. I said, “What if we go talk to the drama teacher first, just to tell him how you feel? If you still want to quit after that, we’ll quit, no questions.”
We went in after school the next day. The teacher hemmed and hawed, said Lila “has stronger connections with the school board” for getting funding, that she “has more experience with big shows.” It was all just polite code for “she’s the favorite, and that’s how this works.” We left, and Riley cried in the car all the way home. That’s when I decided I wasn’t going to fight the school on this. Systemic favoritism in high school clubs doesn’t get fixed by one angry parent email, not usually. I was more worried about my kid’s head than I was about getting a title reversed.
This is the thing I’ve been thinking about since: this happens all the time, and no one talks about how it impacts kids. The soccer captain spot goes to the coach’s niece, the student council seat goes to the kid whose parent organizes the big fundraiser, the lead in the play goes to the teacher’s kid. The kid who shows up every day, does the work, actually earns the spot gets pushed aside, and they’re left wondering if any effort matters. For teens already struggling with the pressure of growing up, that doubt can turn into dangerous thoughts fast.
A lot of parenting advice says you have to advocate for your kid by fighting every battle. But for us, the first right step was just stopping to validate how bad it hurt, instead of rushing to fix it. The most concrete thing any parent can do in this situation is this: before you call the principal, before you tell your kid to work harder next time, just say “This isn’t fair, and I’d be heartbroken too.” That’s it. No extra words needed. Second, don’t pressure them to stay in a space that’s consistently treated them like an afterthought. If it’s a club they loved, that’s okay, it’s okay to leave.
I remembered the small youth community theater downtown, the one that does two shows a year for teens and doesn’t have any ties to the high school. I showed Riley their call for leadership roles, no applications required beyond a paragraph about what work you’ve done before. Riley sent them a list of all the work they did on the fall high school show, attached photos of the set they helped build, and got an interview for assistant director. They got the position two weeks later.
For teachers reading this, there’s a super simple fix to this whole problem that takes almost no extra work: let the club members vote for their own leaders, blind to who’s related to who or who you like more. The kids know who shows up, who works hard, who can lead. You don’t have to pick for them.
It’s been three months now. Riley still doesn’t go to the high school drama club meetings. They spend every Saturday at the community theater, and last week they came home grinning because they got to lead the first read-through of their show. We still go to therapy once a month, to talk about the anger and the dark thoughts that pop up every time Lila posts about the high school spring show on Instagram. I don’t tell Riley that everything happens for a reason, because it doesn’t. This was unfair, it was wrong, and it messed with my kid’s head for weeks. Some battles don’t get won inside the system that broke them. Right now, we’re just taking it one week at a time, and that’s enough.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » What Happens When High School Co-Curricular Leadership Goes To Teacher Favorites: A Parent’s Perspective