Although the child was living with the father, the mother had left the family and was living in another state. There was no custody agreement, so technically she had every right to take her own child.
I was not on duty that morning, but those teachers present were taken off guard. They took appropriate action by notifying the principal who, in turn, called the local police and sheriff's office. The father was contacted by cell phone, but the police were unable to reach the mother and child until they were out of the state.
The staff had talked about this type of incident taking place, but was not prepared for its eventuality. However, the positive side was that the principal...
She had local law enforcement come in and explain such and parental rights -- what could and could not be done.
We had taken the right action, and let the father know that the school had no recourse but to let his child go with his wife. The child is living with the mother and doing well. The two of them are in contact with the father and are friendly to one another. Unfortunately, it took such a situation to make our staff truly understand how to handle this kind of occurrence. In the future, we will be better able to handle circumstances like this because of the training we have had by our administrator.
