To encourage overall development, the kindergarten had asked each student to create a hand-drawn poster.

My daughter Holly refused my help and insisted on doing it all on her own.

Little did I know, most of the other children had their parents do the artwork for them.

In comparison, Holly's delicate strokes were quickly dismissed.

Not only was her work discarded into the trash, but her teacher also called her out in the parent group, criticizing her for being careless with the assignment.

As I racked my brain trying to figure out how to help Holly regain her confidence in drawing, I was surprised to see Holly's artwork among the winning entries in the state-level children's art competition.

But the signature wasn't hers—it belonged to another student from her class.

When the driver brought my daughter, Holly Ramirez, home, I had just finished making stew. It was rare for me to have time to cook, and I thought she'd be pleased to come home to a hot meal. But when I called her name a few times, she didn't rush into my arms like she usually did. Instead, she headed straight for her bedroom.

"What's going on?" I opened the door, and she slowly lifted her head from the pillow. Her eyes were red and swollen. Before I could even blink, tears were already rolling down her cheeks.

"Mom, tell me the truth... Is my drawing really that bad?"

I froze for a moment, and immediately thought of her weekend assignment. The school had said the task was to help develop children's all-around abilities—moral, intellectual, physical, artistic, and labor skills. But for a child who barely knew how to write her letters, this type of assignment was less about helping them and more about giving parents extra work.

I worked in a field related to art, so drawing something like a hand-drawn poster came easily to me. But Holly had insisted on doing it all on her own.

"I can do it myself. I like drawing! I'm going to work hard and become a great artist like you when I grow up!"

Maybe because she had been surrounded by my artwork, Holly's drawing, though a bit rough, showed promise in its color choices, composition, and overall aesthetic. At her age, it was already impressive. So, I praised her honestly, offering constructive feedback. This gave her a huge boost of confidence. After carefully framing her artwork, she eagerly awaited Monday's arrival.

Like most kids, she was hoping for some praise from her teacher. But seeing her in this state now, I realized things may not have gone as she expected.

I patted her head gently. "What happened? Did the teacher criticize you, or did a classmate say something?" It didn't take much to get her to burst into tears, throwing herself into my arms.

"When Ms. Keller checked the assignments today, she said I wasn't being serious and threw my drawing into the trash! She even said if I keep doing assignments like this, she'll ask you to see her at school!"

My first instinct was to wonder if there had been some misunderstanding, since kids didn't always relay things accurately. After calming her down, I opened my phone, planning to speak with the teacher directly. But then, I saw a flurry of new messages in the parent group.

Ursula Keller wrote, [Here are the excellent assignments from this hand-drawn poster project!]

She attached a few snapshots.

[The following are careless assignments, and I hope parents of these students can help ensure their children take the task seriously!

[To avoid affecting other parents' perceptions, I won't post the full list here.]

As an example, she quickly added a few images. Then, she tagged the parents of the so-called careless students.

To my shock, Holly and I were both named in the list of students being criticized by Ursula! Among the many responses acknowledging receipt, I noticed the outstanding works were either drawn by parents or heavily assisted by them. In contrast, the works marked as "careless" were all done solely by the kids.

I couldn't sit still after reading this. I became the only parent to interrupt the flow with a message.

[Excuse me, what are the criteria for judging whether a work is excellent or not?

[Just because the assignment was done by the child themselves, does that mean it should be considered careless?]

After my message, the group fell into complete silence.

Even the other parents whose children had been criticized didn't stand up with me to question it.

Ursula's response came quickly. [The quality of the work is obvious. It's clear that the later pieces have much lower completion compared to the better ones!

[Mrs. Ramirez, if you have any issues with my teaching methods, feel free to speak directly to the principal!

[Please don't disrupt the atmosphere of this group.]

Her tone was bold, almost as if she had nothing to worry about.

Immediately, other parents chimed in.

[Ugly artwork is ugly. What's there to question?]

[Is this one of those troublesome parents you hear about online? Never thought I'd meet one in real life.]

[Being a preschool teacher is tough enough without dealing with people like this.]

I was practically laughing in disbelief at how blindly these people defended the teacher.

Ignoring their comments, I pushed forward with my own.

[Ms. Keller, whose work is this really? Is it the child's work or the parent's work?

[If it's the latter, why not just assign it to the parents directly?

[It's better than you criticizing my child's effort after she worked hard on it!]

The ripple effect was immediate.

Before Ursula could even respond, the messages from other parents started flooding in.

Everyone started tagging me.

[You didn't pay attention to your child, and now you're blaming the teacher for your child's poor work?]

[You didn't help your child, and now you don't want other parents to? I've never seen someone so unreasonable.]

[Maybe the reason your child was criticized is because of her own shortcomings. Why is it always someone else's fault?]

[Seems like jealousy, since other kids' artwork is better than hers.]

[Ms. Keller, can you kick her out? She's obviously just stirring up trouble.]

I stared in shock at my screen, my message halfway typed out. Before I could send it, the screen flashed, and I was removed from the group chat.

This wasn't the first time something like this had happened with Holly. Ursula had a habit of taking photos of poorly completed work and posting them in the group for everyone to see. But what shocked me even more was that no other parent seemed to have a problem with this approach.

I clicked on Ursula's profile and was ready to confront her, but before I could, she had already launched into a long-winded message.

The most eye-catching line read, [Our preschool is the best in the entire city. Many people can't even get in. So of course, our standards are higher. Other parents have no issues with this. Why do you have so many complaints? If you can't accept our methods, you're welcome to transfer your daughter to another school.]

I wasn't about to be led around by her, so I got straight to the point.

[So, this is your excuse for throwing my child's artwork in the trash, then?]

[Your daughter's work really lowers the average. Would you prefer we framed and displayed it instead?]

The moment she sent that, I saw her quickly retract the message, and then she went completely silent.

It seemed she had decided to ignore me.

But little did she know, I had been recording the whole conversation, from the group chat to the private messages.

The next morning, Holly had developed a strong aversion to school, so I decided to let her stay home and took the opportunity to meet with the principal, Kenneth Harding.

When Ursula arrived at the office, Kenneth was still trying to smooth things over with me, pouring tea with a nervous smile.

The moment she saw me, I could tell she realized the problem. She shot me a quick, annoyed look, then turned her gaze to Kenneth.

"You wanted to see me?"

Kenneth slammed the teapot down on the table with a loud clink, his face stern.

"If it weren't for Mrs. Ramirez coming to see me, I wouldn't have known you had such an attitude! I've always said I liked your work ethics, but this is how you handle problems behind the scenes? Apologize to Mrs. Ramirez right now!"

Ursula finally turned toward me, suppressing the displeasure on her face. She barely managed to bow deeply.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Ramirez. I didn't handle my emotions well yesterday. It won't happen again. Please forgive me."

Seeing her attitude, I crossed my arms and said nothing. It was Kenneth who stepped in to smooth things over.

"After something like this, there's no way you're getting nominated for Teacher of the Year," he said. "Tomorrow, you should apologize to Holly in front of the class. If this happens again, you won't be teaching here anymore!"

Ursula's face twisted for a moment, but she ultimately said nothing. Kenneth turned to me, his tone more diplomatic now.

"We'll make sure the teachers' behavior is closely monitored from now on, Mrs. Ramirez. What do you think?"

The meaning was clear—he wanted to drop the matter and move on. Considering that Holly had only six months left before graduating, switching schools now would be tough for her to adjust to. Plus, the apology had been made, and there were consequences for the teacher. I didn't want to push it any further.

After I was added back into the parents' group and Ursula publicly apologized, I reluctantly nodded in approval of their handling of the situation.

In the following days, when I dropped Holly off at kindergarten, I did notice a change in Ursula's attitude toward both of us. She seemed a lot more considerate, paying more attention to Holly. Holly told me that the teacher had apologized to her as well. She had been getting more praise and attention in class than usual, and it seemed like her enthusiasm for both school and drawing was starting to return. I felt a sense of relief.

Then one day, I received a push notification about a state-level children's art competition, showcasing the winning works. I clicked on it, thinking I'd admire the artwork, but to my shock, the gold medal section proudly displayed Holly's hand-drawn poster from a while back!

But the name listed under the artwork was that of a boy from her class.

I quickly found the photo I had taken of Holly's work to compare it. It turned out that it wasn't a direct copy, but the composition and elements were nearly identical—only some minor details were altered. It was clearly a blatant case of plagiarism!

I immediately recalled what Holly had said about Ursula throwing her drawing in the trash. But when I tried to reach out to her about it, she didn't respond. Instead, she continued to post in the parent group, which only allowed the admin to send messages now.

My anger shot up to my head. Without thinking twice, I called Ursula.

I barely got the chance to explain myself before she cut in impatiently.

"They're all kids of a similar age. It's not surprising their ideas would overlap. I've seen the photo you sent, and I honestly don't see any resemblance."

At this point, she sounded entirely unbothered.

"If you have an issue with the competition results, you should contact the organizers directly!" she snapped. "Mrs. Ramirez, stop bothering me for nothing!"

She seemed to think that I had no other evidence besides that photo. Before I could respond, she hung up the phone.

Moments later, another message popped up in the class group.

Ursula wrote, [To celebrate Tobias Brown winning the state-level children's drawing competition's gold medal, the kindergarten will hold a Little Artist Exhibition tomorrow. Every child will have a piece of their artwork displayed. Parents are welcome to attend if they're available!]

I could hardly imagine how heartbroken Holly would be if she saw her artwork displayed under someone else's name at that exhibition!

Feeling desperate, I immediately called Kenneth, hoping to get some clarity. But his response was as vague as ever.

"One photo doesn't prove anything. The exhibition notice has already been sent out, and changing it last minute would cause trouble. Mrs. Ramirez, don't worry. We'll look into this and definitely get back to you with an explanation."

I was shaking with anger, holding the phone tightly. Once was enough to believe such nonsense. If private conversations didn't work, then I wouldn't hesitate to make sure this exhibition didn't go ahead!