HORTON, Mich. (WLNS) — An 11-year-old’s drawing was taken by school officials after it was deemed “inappropriate.”

“Everybody is refusing to remove the artwork, and they are refusing to apologize, and those are the only two things I’ve asked for,” said Carter.

Sierra Carter has been battling with Hanover Horton Schools to get the image scrubbed from her daughter’s file.

“This is not what she meant to draw,” remarked Carter. “I mean, it’s very clearly a bowtie.”

To some, it’s a harmless drawing of a pig, but that’s not what school officials thought.

“I got a call from my daughter’s teacher saying she had drawn something inappropriate in art class,” said Carter. “The teacher looked at it [and] said she had to give it to the principal, to get his thoughts on that. She told me that when she gave it to him and asked him what his thoughts were, he instantly said [to] write her up for it.”

Carter confronted the school principal, and he asked the mother who is responsible for apologizing to her daughter.

Nevertheless, Carter persisted. School officials then agreed to remove the write-up, but they would still keep documentation of the incident.

“They stated they needed it as a paper trail in case my daughter did anything else,” said Sierra.

The superintendent of the school, John Denney, said that his staff handled the situation with “compassion and discretion,” and that the school did not “ostracize” the student.

But Carter said that that is not the case for her little one.

The 11-year-old tells her mom that she doesn’t want to go to school and that she’s both anxious and worried about getting in trouble.

Sierra Carter then took the situation to one more place: TikTok. Her main hope is to create change by giving her daughter’s situation more light.

“I never expected any of this to become such a big deal, it never should have become a big deal,” said Carter.

Superintendent Denney response to the TikTok post was one of dismay.

“It’s unfortunate that a one-sided narrative has been created on social media that paints our staff in a negative light,” said Denney.