‘What would you do? What can I do?’: Mom uncovers grade school dental scam and becomes locked in one-woman battle for her kids’ safety

Parents have enough to worry about in their day-to-day lives, so at least one load off a mom’s mind is that their kids’ school is at least on the same page as them in wanting the best for their children. For one Southeastern Kentucky mother, though, her initial trust in her kids’ school has resulted in her being trapped in what appears to be a widespread scam going back decades.

TikTok user Alicia McQueen outlined the nightmare scenario for any parent that she had found herself in, which began innocuously enough with her signing a consent form to allow her young kids to have a check-up with a touring dentist, one which offered a free cleaning. Although Alicia takes her kids to regular dentists’ appointments anyway, she figured it couldn’t hurt.

Unfortunately, it did. After this check-up, Alicia received a letter and a follow-up phone call informing her that both of her children had “abnormalities” with their teeth — they were said to be “decaying” and required “root canals” and other invasive treatments — and she would have to consent to them being pulled out of school for two days and being put under anesthesia. What’s more, Alicia was told she was “not allowed to be there.”

Knowing this wasn’t right, Alicia took her kids to her regular dentist and, sure enough, they have perfect teeth — “no signs of cavities, no signs of decaying, nothing.” She even saw the scans to prove it. Reporting back to the school, Alicia discovered that they were going to go ahead with the unnecessary dental surgery on her two children, with her initial consent to the check-up being used as her consent for the surgery.

When Alicia hit back at the school for scheduling these surgeries against her wishes, she was hit with a letter warning her that if her kids were absent on those days they would be seen as being truant and she would have to go to court.

Sadly, this situation only got thornier the more Alicia tried to clear it up. Although her regular dentist was on her side, they could not investigate the school’s dentist because the school refused to hand out their details and deliberately ignored and passed around Alicia’s calls when she tried to contact them. To make matters worse, the school booked a meeting with her to discuss “safety concerns” they have about her children, basically accusing Alicia of neglect.

Obviously, Alicia has reached out to other parties to help her, but her efforts keep going around in frustrating circles. Neither her health insurance or even an attorney can look into it for her unless they get all the relevant information about the school’s dentist and her children’s alleged dental problems… but Alicia can’t get this from the school until she consents to their surgery!

At this point, Alicia transformed from put-upon mom to crusading avenger. She was shocked to find out from her kids’ dentist that she is far from the first parent who has come to them to get dental records after their school has attempted to pull the same scam on them. It’s apparently something that happens year after year in conjunction with these kind of programs, and although the dentist has complained to the school board for years, their complaints have been ignored. The reason? Because the school board profits off of the scam as much as the touring dentists. “Please don’t give up on this,” the dentist told Alicia, which she took to heart.

In her most recent update on the situation, Alicia made clear that although the whole thing has been “a huge mess” she is not backing down, not just for her own sake and that of her kids but for “hundreds of families” out there who have gone through the same thing “for generations.” Now, Alicia is calling for those who have suffered similar bad experiences with school dental programs to share those stories with her, as she is in contact with some journalist and local news stations in an attempt to expose the deep-rooted scam.

As Alicia says, she is “fighting a big war” here so there’s guarantee if she can claim a victory, but at the very least the people behind this dental program must be regretting crossing a woman who has such a ferocious bite.