An 11-year-old lady’s art work is at the middle of a debate at a Michigan college after the kid’s mom mentioned her daughter was unjustly focused resulting from a misinterpretation of the drawing.
In a now-viral TikTok, Sierra Carter defined that she was contacted by her daughter’s fifth grade instructor at the elementary college within the Hanover-Horton School District, saying “a little boy had come up to her and made her aware that he thought my daughter drew boy parts on her pig project.”
Carter mentioned, when requested, her daughter advised the instructor the drawing was really of a bow tie, however the undertaking was in the end taken and given to the varsity’s vice principal.
Later, when dropping her daughter off the next week, Carter requested to see the drawing her daughter created.
“As soon as I look at it I’m like ‘Are you freaking kidding me? It’s a freaking bow tie,'” Carter mentioned in her video, which has since been seen over 600,000 instances on the social media web site.
“I’m sorry my daughter’s no Monet, but to her, a bow tie is a bow and a tie,” Carter continued. “And if another kid happened to look at it and think that it was something else that sounds like a he problem and not a she problem.”
The college mentioned it was not punishing Carter’s daughter, however Carter mentioned she was advised a duplicate of the art work could be saved “in case other instances come up.”
In an announcement to NBC 5, the district’s superintendent, John Denney, famous that there are “two sides to this story” and that “nothing has been placed in any student’s school records related to this matter.”
“In this case, a student appropriately brought concerns to the attention of our staff,” Denney mentioned. “In response, our staff handled the situation with compassion and discretion. Staff contacted the student’s parents to discuss the situation. No student was singled out or ostracized. Every effort was made to protect the privacy and dignity of all students.”
In a collection of follow-up TikToks, Carter mentioned she met with Denney and different college management in search of an apology and for no copies of the art work to be left in her daughter’s file.
She shared a duplicate of an electronic mail from Denney, wherein he states that whereas her kid’s file has no reference to the scenario in it, he doesn’t really feel it will be “appropriate… to dispose of the artifacts.”
“As it stands right now, they are basically notes that can be referred back to if there are any significant issues through the end of the year,” Denney’s electronic mail acknowledged.
He added that it’s a “common process for a teacher and/or administrator to do with students.”
“It is our way of giving a bit of a break while still having something to accurately look back on if a similar thing occurs later in the year,” the e-mail learn. “In my opinion, it would not be appropriate for the office to do anything differently with the items they are keeping track of.”
However Carter mentioned “there’s nothing that she did wrong to bring up and hold against her.”
She believes the scenario was mishandled and will have been corrected the second her daughter knowledgeable them that the drawing was of a bow tie.
“It could have been shut down and it could have been stopped, but it was not,” she mentioned.