CALLAHAN, Fla. – A Florida mother is outraged after her 4-year-old son was expelled from his preschool because of a Facebook post on her personal page.
Ashley Habat says she doesn’t regret expressing her opinion but doesn’t believe her son should be punished for something she wrote.
Habat says her 4-year-old son, Will, was running late for school on picture day at Sonshine Christian Academy, a private Christian preschool.
When they arrived, she told the administrator that she thought the school didn’t give parents enough notice for picture day.
The administration says a note was sent out with all students a week before the pictures were taken.
Habat says she took to Facebook to vent her frustrations and never expected the school to see her private post.
“Why is it that every single day there is something new I dislike about Will’s School? Are my standards really too high or are people working in the education field really just that ignorant?” the post read.
She says she tagged the school in the post but didn’t expect to receive a call to the office the next day.
When she dropped her son off the next day, the school told her that her son could no longer attend.
“They just felt like we weren’t the right fit, parent relationship with the school, and that they didn’t want him as a student anymore,” Habat said. “He had done nothing wrong.”
According to the letter of dismissal, Habat’s “relationship with Sonshine did not get off to a very good start the first day of school… You utilized social media to call into question not only the integrity but the intelligence of our staff… These actions are also consistent with sowing discord, which is spoken of in the handbook you signed.”
“I was in shock,” Habat said. “Why would you expel a 4-year-old over something his mom posts on her private Facebook page only people on her friends list can see?”