Photo: Pavel Danilyuk / Pexels
They're causing problems for this school but for all the right reasons.
By Isaac Serna-Diez — Written on May 17, 2023
A mom on TikTok has recently shared the experiences and interactions she’s had with her daughter’s school, including a lot of the problems that they’re been having as a result.
Teale (@tealekelleyy) explains that her daughter had only recently moved to this school this year, so it’s a relatively new experience for her, but boy, did it start off rough and progress to a point where other children are now at risk.
The mom’s daughter has been telling her about a classmate who is going hungry and hasn’t gotten help.
After several strange occurrences, including a rude comment towards Teale about her age and accusations toward her daughter about bullying without proof, she claims things have continued to get weird until the day her daughter told her about her classmate.
“The other day, my daughter got in the car and she’s like ‘Mom, there’s a kid in my class who doesn’t have food every day can I bring her some snacks tomorrow?’” she explained. Confused, the mom asked her daughter what she meant and wanted her to explain a little more.
“She was like ‘yeah, she never comes to school with food and they stopped giving her hot lunches they just give her graham crackers and saltine crackers now.’” As the concerned mother she is, Teale told her that of course she was allowed to take some snacks to school for her classmate.
According to numbers from a 2021 Education Data Initiative report, approximately 1.54 million students can’t afford their school meals — that’s a lot of kids going hungry, and Teale didn’t want to add another one into the fold.
The next day, her daughter told her that this same classmate was hysterically crying in class.
“She’s like, ‘Mom, that kid I was telling you about was hysterically crying and didn’t want to leave school because she said that they were scared to go home,’” Teale continued explaining. Allegedly, the girl had also shown the teacher the bruises that were on her arm, even telling the teacher that they had been hurting her at home.
These are very strong accusations coming from a child with very clear proof. According to Education Corner, most states in the United States have written teachers being mandated reporters into law. This basically means that “teachers are legally obligated to report any signs of abuse or neglect of a child to the appropriate authorities immediately.”
“The next day, we called the school and we said ‘Are you aware of the situation?’ My daughter said this child had been making comments like this for the last few months,” Teale continued, but according to the school, they were keeping their mouths shut for “confidentiality.”
Teale and her daughter’s stepmom are both mandated reporters as Teale is a nurse and her daughter’s stepmom is a teacher, they both filed a report with Child Protective Services (CPS). According to Teale, CPS has no other cases of this situation.
The school has allegedly known about the potential abuse for months and has done nothing about it.
After the school was made aware of the case being filed, Teale’s daughter was called into the principal's office. “They ask her why she told her parents about another child’s business. She said, ‘I’m trying to keep her safe.’”
Teale’s daughter was clearly raised right and taught the vital skill of "if you see something, say something," but the school wasn’t very happy about it. Still, it is commendable that she did the right thing and her classmate may finally be on the way to safety.
Isaac Serna-Diez is an Assistant Editor who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics.