Mother takes son away from Charleston Co. School District after being picked up without permission

CHARLESTON COUNTY, S.C. (WCSC) – A Charleston County family has pulled their child from Ladson Elementary after an incident they say made him feel unsafe.

Ashley and Trevor Snyder say the school released their son to someone they didn’t like.

The Snyders say they served the school with a temporary restraining order against the child’s biological father at the beginning of the school year.

Ashley shares custody of her son with her ex-husband who lives out of state, and says she was granted the restraining order when her son told her in June that he was being abused.

Ashley says she got a FaceTime call in the middle of the school day on August 27 and answered it when she saw her 10-year-old crying and saying his dad had picked him up from school.

She says she called 911 and rushed to the school. Her son and ex-husband were still in the parking lot because her son refused to go with him.

“It could all have been prevented,” Ashley Snyder said.

An incident report from the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office states that once all parties arrived at the school, it was determined that the child was “not currently allowed to be with his biological father.”

“As we were terrified on the way to the school, it’s probably a ten minute drive, we were definitely driving too fast to get there, and on his {Trevor} phone we called the police and on my phone we called we called the school ,” Ashey Snyder said. I immediately reached the school and said, ‘Someone is trying to pick up my son and take him away and he doesn’t have permission,’ and they put me on hold. We were on hold all the way until we got to the school.

“The ultimate issue was that this child was removed from a school that we had entrusted to get him into a safe environment,” Trevor Snyder said.

Ashley is angry that her son was exposed to things that children should not worry about.

“He had no idea we were dealing with such a major custody issue because he didn’t need to be made aware of it, he just needed to be aware that we were doing what we could to protect him said Ashley Snyder. “He didn’t need to know that his father had flown across the country to take him with him.”

The district said: Charleston County School District has protocols in place that govern how students are released to authorized family members, guardians and caregivers. This issue has been thoroughly investigated and addressed. We can confirm that the staff member involved in this situation no longer works for the district.

Live 5 specifically asked the district if they could confirm that the school had this restraining order on file and if this child was released from the school to his father. The above statement was all that was provided to us, leaving these questions unanswered.

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