A Maryland 10-year-old after he brought play money on the school bus. Now, his mother is looking for answers. The Montgomery County school has admitted that mistakes were made, Fox 5 reports.
Tiffany Kelly bought fake money on Amazon to help her son, Sadiq, learn to count, she told Fox 5. The play money is marked with pink Chinese characters, and Sadiq brought it with him on the school bus and was handing it out to other students.
Montgomery County Police say the bus driver saw what was happening and alerted a supervisor who called the police saying there was a student who may have counterfeit money.
Police notified the Secret Service, which is reportedly their policy for any potential counterfeiting cases.
An officer then went to Sadiq’s school to talk to him in the principal’s office.
“We need to stop calling police on children,” Kelly said. “There was a time, if I had a fight, even if I went to a store and took something, my parents were called. We do not need to involve law enforcement on every level of a child’s development and learning.”
Kelly said she wasn’t told what was going until after a police officer interviewed her son and realized this was a misunderstanding.
Montgomery County Public School officials released a statement reading:
“MCPS staff are actively are working with the parent to address her concerns. There were some clear missteps on our part and we are working to ensure the process is clear moving forward for staff and that incidents like this do not happen again.Our practice is to call the police if there is suspicion and/or evidence of a student trying to use counterfeit money to purchase something. But that wasn’t the case in this situation and the police should not have been called.”
