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Seven-year-old girl manages to trick teachers and escape school with forged note scrawled on scrap paper

Rosabella Dahu's teachers were convinced by the note, despite her child-like handwriting and spelling mistakes

Rachael Pells
Thursday 05 May 2016 10:49 BST
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Teachers at Sheldon Elementary school were convinced by the scrawled note
Teachers at Sheldon Elementary school were convinced by the scrawled note (KTRK-TV Houston)

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A seven-year-old girl from Texas successfully used a forged note to get out of school, much to her parents’ surprise.

Rosabella Dahu was due to attend an after-school programme at Sheldon Elementary school in Houston, but was granted permission to get on a bus and go home after presenting teachers with the impromptu excuse.

The note said: “I want Rosabella to go too dus 131 today. To: Ms Reign”.

Despite writing the letter on a scrap piece of paper from her school notebook and including mistakes such as a backwards letter ‘b’, Ms Dahu managed to fool her teachers and leave the school unaccompanied.

The second grader’s father, Charlie Dahu, said he received a phone call on Monday afternoon from a concerned neighbour, who told him his daughter was waiting outside her locked up family home.

“she came to ask my wife to use the restroom and that’s when I figured there was something wrong,” the neighbour said.

Mr Dahu rushed home to meet his daughter, telling US news platform UPI that he was “shaking” and “scared” about his daughter being left unattended.

“You can clearly see she did not even spell the word ‘bus’ right,” said Mr Dahu, adding that he planned to transfer his daughter to a new school.

“Obviously they didn’t have proper procedures in place, this is clearly the school’s fault,” he said. “How a seven-year-old can trick you, it boggles my mind.”

Sheldon Elementary issued a statement to say the situation was being investigated.

A spokesperson said: “We are reviewing our training procedures to ensure that our after-school grant program [sic] staff is properly trained in dismissal procedures.”

“At this point, the district is continuing to investigate and will take proper disciplinary action. As always, student safety is our top priority.“

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