If you ask any parent what worries them, how safe their kids are at school is something that’s always at the back of their minds.
In the last decade, school security has boomed into a $2.7 billion market. More safety measures have been put in place in schools across America – things like hiring security guards, enforcing transparent backpacks, and monitoring students’ social media accounts have all become the norm.
However, as one mom demonstrated, perhaps schools are tightening security in the wrong places.
It’s all very well that schools are taking more measures to protect our children, but the unfortunate reality is that simply limiting access to school grounds is not enough.
A woman named Casey Garcia had a sneaking suspicion that the security at her daughter’s school in San Elizario, Texas, wasn’t up to scratch.
So she decided to do a little detective work to see exactly how the school operated for herself.
Casey decided to do a little “social experiment” and film all her findings. She posted the video on her YouTube channel, where it has received more than 800,000 views in just six days.
People had mixed reactions to Casey’s video, with some saying that she did it for attention. Others, however, praised her for forcing her daughter’s school to evaluate its security measures.
In a follow-up video, Casey even recorded the moment that the police arrived at her house to arrest her.
So, what did she do that was so controversial?
Casey decided to infiltrate the school – but first, she needed a complete makeover.
She dyed her hair dark, applied spray-tan, and donned her 13-year-old’s yellow hoodie and glasses. Her plan was to disguise herself as her daughter, Julie, and go to school in her place.
It was a crazy plan – but could she pull it off?
Casey, who is 4 feet, 11 inches tall and weighs 105 pounds, posed as a teenager by wearing glasses and a black mask to cover her face. She pulled Julie’s hoodie over her head.
“OK, I’ll talk to you guys once I’m inside,” she says to the camera. “Do I look like a seventh-grader? No? Cool, awesome.”
She held her phone low in her hands and discreetly recorded everything that happened.
The video continues and the mom can be seen walking through the school’s halls, greeting the school’s principal, and attending her daughter’s classes! She says that she feels really nervous and is sure she’s about to get caught.
At one point, she even gets lost and asks for directions, but nobody has caught on.
“I’ve been here all day, face to face with teachers,” Casey remarked quietly while she ate her lunch without a mask on. How could nobody have noticed that there she was an adult woman posing as a teenager?
Indeed, Casey made it all the way to the seventh lesson before she was exposed.
A teacher realized that Casey wasn’t who she said she was, so Casey was forced to walk to the principal’s office and turn herself in. Shortly after, she released another video explaining why she did what she did.
“I didn’t do this to ruffle any feathers, I didn’t do this to out the school, because I was never going to say what school district or what school it was, they put that out there themselves,” she said in the video.
She emphasized that she didn’t impersonate her daughter for the “likes.”
“We need better security at our schools, this is what I tried to prove, and I don’t mean to be curt but I kind of feel like I proved it,” Casey said.
She also said that she simply checked into the school with her daughter’s ID number. She had made her point.
The next day, Casey was arrested for criminal trespassing and an unrelated traffic violation, but was released on a $7,808 bond.
To see the entire “social experiment,” watch the video below.
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