Mom Expresses Concern After Her 7-Year-Old Daughter Drove To School Alone In A Car With A Male Teacher She’s Never Met
She's worried she may be overreacting, but is there really such a thing when it comes to protecting your child?
fizkes | Shutterstock All good parents want to protect their children, so it’s not surprising that a mom was concerned when she found out her daughter was put in a potentially dangerous position by her school. Now, she’s left to wonder if she reacted appropriately or perhaps too harshly to the strange situation.
The mom took to Reddit as a last resort after learning that her daughter was given a ride to school by an unknown male teacher instead of the school sending the bus back for her as they had promised.
A mom said her seven-year-old was driven to school by a male teacher they didn’t know without her permission.
In Reddit’s “Parenting” forum, an upset mother sought advice after she learned something disturbing about how her daughter got to school one day. “My seven-year-old daughter was alone with a male teacher in his car, and we weren’t told about it,” she began. “She goes to daycare before school and takes the bus from daycare to her school.”
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From what this mom said, the daycare situation sounded a bit complicated. “The daycare is inside the older elementary school (grades three through six) and she goes to the younger elementary school (kindergarten through second grade),” she explained. “She’s done this daily the last two school years.”
The mom said her daughter got on the wrong bus, and the school was supposed to send the right bus to pick her up.
“Somehow today she got mixed in with the older elementary kids and missed the bus,” the mom said. “We were called and told they would send the bus back to bring her to her school and she wouldn’t be marked tardy for this.”
Her daughter told her a very different story, though. “After school, she said she missed the bus and went back to school in a teacher’s car,” she continued. “I asked what teacher and she said ‘Mr. So and so,’ so I was like, ‘Was anyone else in the car with you?’ And she said no, just her and the male teacher.”
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“I’m upset about it,” she said, understandably. “I don’t know this teacher and neither does dad. She didn’t even know who he was, just a random teacher that volunteered to drive her back to school.”
Now, the mom wants to take some kind of action.“I want to email the school and ask why they thought that was appropriate and why we weren’t asked if this was okay,” she shared. “My partner doesn’t think it’s that big of a deal.”
Commenters advised the mom to proceed with caution.
While it was completely natural for this woman to be concerned about her daughter’s well-being, several of the people who commented on her post suggested she exercise caution when reaching out to the school. “I would notify the school that it happened and shouldn’t happen but remain calm about it,” one person recommended. “Unless you have reason to think something bad happened, you could derail his entire teaching career here.”
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Others thought she was focused on the wrong thing entirely. “I don’t like how you’re insinuating something bad about the teacher because he’s male,” someone else said. “This is an issue but not because of the teacher being a man. I would be upset that the school found it appropriate for my child to ride in a car with any person without my consent.”
“I’d be very angry,” another person said. “There was absolutely nothing stopping them from calling you back and explaining the situation and asking your permission to have a teacher transport your child.”
The Department of Education doesn’t recommend using personal vehicles for transporting students.
Using personal vehicles to transport students is not unheard of, especially when it comes to extracurricular activities. But, according to the Department of Education, “In general, the best solution for all pupil transportation is an approved school bus and a qualified school bus driver.”
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Furthermore, the Department said, “No student of either sex should be permitted to ride to and from a school function alone with a staff member.”
Really, even if the teacher had been a female, this was an inappropriate situation. The school had already informed the mother that the bus would be going back for her daughter, only for them to apparently change their mind. That truly is the biggest concern she should be focused on.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.