As a parent, you’re probably accustomed to a slew of forms, flyers, and notices coming home for you to review in your child’s backpack. More often than not, these papers probably get a glance before they’re signed or thrown in the trash, but one particular mom on TikTok received a paper from her daughter’s school that made her take a second look.
Lauren took to the internet to show a form that her daughter’s school had sent home asking for some very personal details about her 13-year-old and her birth. The mid-year survey wanted to know the type of birth Lauren had gone through all those years ago, her daughter’s gestation period, and oddly specific details about her child’s toddlerhood.
Commenters were equally outraged at the form, calling it invasive and even noting that it bordered on Handmaid’s Tale-level oddities. They encouraged her not to fill out the form, and to call the school and question them as to why the form was being sent out at all, and some even noted that this could be considered a privacy violation.
In a follow-up video, Lauren answered some of the commenters’ questions and updated them about what she’s learned about the form. She shared that she’d learned that the form was going to be sent home with children from multiple schools across the district, and has nothing to do with any autism or specialized learning screening.
In a second follow-up, Lauren went on to detail her call with the district nurse who she said gave very generic answers only stating that the school was filling out gaps that they had in their files. Lauren noted that she didn’t seem to know a lot about the form and questions, and that if she did, she apparently wasn’t willing to share.
Lauren even went as far as to say that she was going back and forth with taking the whole mystery to the local news.
At this point, Lauren is the Robin Hood of her Washington school district. Heavy responsibility.
It seems that Lauren has gotten to know everyone in the district via phone call, ending with the Health Services coordinator, who seemed to have no idea what Lauren was talking about. Needless to say, she is playing a never-ending game of telephone with everyone in the school district, but to no avail. So much so that commenters have told her to just show up, maybe then she would get some answers.
In a last-ditch effort of her crusade across the school district, Lauren was able to get in contact with her daughter’s principal who completely flipped the script. He was very apologetic about the form being sent out, saying he had no idea that it was being sent out and that he would be writing an apology letter telling families to disregard the form together.
She and her commenters agree that this opens up an interesting conversation about the people making decisions in public school systems, and the importance of having a healthy sense of skepticism, if not outright suspicion, about the things being sent home with their kids.
