A drawing of a well-dressed pig is at the centre of controversy after school officials raised concerns about the student who drew it.
A mum has shared her outrage after her child’s drawing was confiscated by school staff after they deemed it 'inappropriate'.
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The drawing, named ‘Piggie’, shows a happy pig saying 'hi' with its legs waving in the air and a bright yellow tail.
However, the doodle’s tie raised eyebrows among staff at Hanover Horton Schools in Michigan, US, who thought it looked like something else.
“I got a call from my daughter’s teacher saying she had drawn something inappropriate in art class,” mum Sierra Carter told local news station WLNS.
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“The teacher looked at it [and] said she had to give it to the principal, to get his thoughts on that.
“She told me that when she gave it to him and asked him what his thoughts were, he instantly said [to] write her up for it.
“It’s very clear it’s not what she meant to draw, like, it’s very clearly a bowtie,” she explained.
Sierra fought to get the picture removed from her daughter’s file and confronted the principal at the school.
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She added: “He asked me ‘who do you expect to apologise to her?’ that was his response to me.”
But Sierra continued to defend her daughter and her artwork.
School officials eventually agreed to remove the write-up against her child, however the school has kept documentation about the drawing on file in case the little girl ‘did anything else’.
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Hanover Horton Superintendent John Denney said school officials handled the issue with ‘compassion and discretion’ and didn’t ostracise the student.
However, Sierra has claimed this wasn't the case.
She said her 11-year-old daughter now doesn’t want to go to school and feels both anxious and worried about getting into trouble.
The concerned mum has taken to TikTok to spread word about the incident by ‘giving her daughter’s situation more light’.
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She told the local news station: “I never expected any of this to become such a big deal, it never should have become a big deal.
“Everybody is refusing to remove the artwork and they are refusing to apologise and those are the only two things I’ve asked for.”
Gregory Robinson