MANATEE — A telephone message called in Friday to Bayshore High School about a sick student just didn’t sit well with a school clerk.
Authorities later discovered the clerk’s hunch was right and that a 36-year-old man posing as a 14-year-old girl’s father called the girl in sick, according to the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office.
Bayshore Principal David Underhill said the clerk just felt the message didn’t sound legitimate and turned it over to an attendance supervisor who called the girl’s parents.
The girl’s parents then went to the school, where officials told them a man had called claiming to be the girl’s father and said she was sick, Underhill said.
A tip later came in that the girl had been spotted in a car with a man at the El Conquistador apartment complex, in the 5900 block of 36th Street West.
Just before noon, the girl appeared at the school with Edgar Mendez, 36, who was arrested on a charge of interference with child custody, according to a sheriff’s report.
“Our school resource officer watched him walk up with the student,” Underhill said.
Underhill praised the work of his employees, who sensed something amiss with the call right away.
“It was really several people here paying attention to very important details,” he said.
Underhill said 60 to 100 students a day are called in absent at Bayshore, making it very difficult to check the validity of every call.
Students, however, are required to bring a note from a parent upon their return explaining their absence, and an automated call is placed to every household of a child who was marked absent on the day of the absence.
“You don’t even have to have missed the whole day. If a student is marked absent from one period, a call goes out,” Underhill said.
Underhill also recommends parents sign up for an online program offered by the school district in which parents can monitor their child’s attendance and grades in real-time.
Parents just need to go to their child’s school office and show a driver’s license to be issued a PIN number to access the program, Underhill said.
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