What to do when an adult in school makes your teen uncomfortable: Lessons from the Keith Ervin incident
My 16-year-old daughter Lila slung her backpack onto our kitchen counter last month, popped open a can of lemon soda, and said, “That Keith Ervin guy is a creep.” She’d gone to the local library’s meet-and-greet for school board candidates that afternoon, as part of her student government work pushing for a new student parking lot. I was stirring spaghetti sauce, and my spoon stopped mid-stir. I’d seen Ervin’s signs all over town, knew he was the incumbent running for another term. “What happened?” I asked.
She walked up to introduce herself, said she was from the high school student council. He pulled her in for a hug that held on a beat too long, she said, her shoulders tensing even retelling it. When he let go, he leaned in a little and said, “Wow, you’re way hotter in person than your yearbook photo.” She laughed awkwardly, mumbled something about the parking lot, and walked away to find her friend. No one else heard it. She didn’t say anything right then because he’s the school board member, she didn’t want to cause a scene, didn’t want people saying she was sensitive or overreacting.
My first instinct was to grab my phone and call the superintendent right that second. But I held back. When I was 15, an assistant soccer coach made a similar comment about my shorts at an away game, and my mom called the high school principal before I even finished telling her what happened. By the end of the week, the whole team was saying I’d gotten the coach fired just because I was upset he benched me, and I stopped going to practice. I didn’t want that for Lila.
So I sat down next to her at the counter, pushed the half-stirred sauce to the side, and asked her first: “What do you want to do about this?” Not what I wanted, what she wanted. She said she didn’t want her name splashed all over the local Facebook groups, didn’t want to have to sit through a dozen awkward meetings with people asking her over and over what happened. But she also said she didn’t want him to do the same thing to another girl. That’s the middle ground a lot of kids land on, I’ve realized, that adults often miss. They don’t always want a public reckoning, they just don’t want anyone else to feel that icky, tight feeling in their chest they felt.
First, we pulled out a notebook and wrote down every detail: date, time, location, exactly what he said, how the prolonged hug felt, that no one else heard the comment but her friend Mia saw her leave looking upset. That’s a small, concrete step any parent can do, just get the details down while they’re fresh, no matter how small the incident seems. Then, we went to Lila’s student council advisor, who she’s trusted for two years, instead of going straight to the full school board. That was Lila’s call, because she knew the advisor would take it seriously without blowing it up before we were ready. The advisor helped us set up an off-the-record meeting with the school board chair, to get the incident on official record, and request that Ervin not be assigned to any one-on-one or unsupervised interactions with students at any school events going forward. We didn’t file a formal public complaint at that point, which is what Lila wanted.
A week later, the board chair told us two other girls from the other high school in the district had come forward with almost identical stories: too-long hugs, comments about how “hot” they were, at volunteer events and community meetings. It turned out Lila wasn’t overreacting, just the first person who’d said anything.
A lot of parents ask me now what they should do if their kid comes to them with something like this, and the biggest thing I tell them is don’t lead with “why didn’t you say anything?” That question automatically puts the blame on your kid, when the problem is the adult who crossed the line. Teens are drilled from elementary school to be polite to adults, even when adults make them uncomfortable. Ervin was in a position of power: he votes on school budgets, approves club funding, hires the superintendent. Speaking up in the moment isn’t just awkward, it feels risky. That’s not a failure on the kid’s part, that’s how power works.
Another concrete thing I share: don’t take over the whole process unless your kid explicitly asks you to. Instead of immediately calling the local paper or demanding a public hearing, ask your kid what level of action they’re comfortable with. If they don’t want a public complaint, you can still take low-key steps to keep everyone safe: get the incident on record, request the adult not interact unsupervised with students, talk to other parent leaders to keep an eye out. You don’t have to choose between respecting your kid’s comfort and protecting other kids.
Right now, Ervin suspended his campaign a week after the third complaint came out, and the district has opened a formal investigation. Some people in town still say it was just a bad joke, that the girls are too sensitive. That part still stings, for Lila. But she’s started a small shift with the student council: any time they go to meet with school board members or other adult district officials, they go in pairs. No one meets one-on-one with an adult they don’t know well anymore. It’s a tiny, easy change, and it makes every kid on the council feel a lot safer.
I don’t have a neat ending here. The investigation is still open, the election is next month, and we don’t know what’s going to happen next. But what I do know is that when your kid comes to you saying an adult made them uncomfortable, the first thing you do is believe them, meet them where they are, and take the steps that work for them. That’s enough, even when it’s not the big dramatic ending everyone expects.
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