7-Year-Old Writes Fake Dismissal Note, School Doesn't Bat An Eye

A resourceful 7-year-old girl Houston girl who didn’t feel like going to her after school program wrote an excuse note and passed it to staff at Sheldon Elementary School. They accepted it and placed her on a bus home, where she waited in front of her home, alone, until a concerned neighbor scooped her up and called her father.

No one was home to receive her, because she was supposed to be in the after school program. She wasn’t in her after school program, because she wrote this totally believable excuse note.

“I want Rosabella to go too dus 131 today.” Um, no. Who the hell accepted this note?

Charlie Dahu’s daughter Rosabella wrote the note, and he’s understandably upset that it worked. “You can clearly see she did not even spell the word bus right?” Dahu said to ABC News.

I’m first generation on both sides — my mother learned to read English when my older sister did. Her handwriting was not great. But this is clearly a child’s scrawl. There is just no way around it. It certainly should have been confirmed before it was accepted. “I was shaking, I was scared, I was just glad to see her in good health and that nothing happened to her,” said Dahu. Any parent would be disturbed that their 7-year-old was able to skip out on an after school program and be dropped off in front of an empty house by passing a note like that along.

The school district released the following statement:

Sheldon ISD is currently investigating the situation. We are reviewing our training procedures to ensure that our after-school grant program staff is properly trained in dismissal procedures. As we move forward, the district is working to make sure that all of our after-school grant staff receives the same training as district employees. At this point, the district is continuing to investigate and will take proper disciplinary action. As always, student safety is our top priority.

“Basically a 7-year-old second grader tricked the school system and was able to go home on this note,” Rosabella’s father said.

Not good.