Teacher Posting Child On Social Media Without Guardian Permission--and Putting The Child In Danger. What Can We Ask The School To Do About This?

Location: NH, USA. I'm not quite sure what the best subreddit for this is, and if this isn't the right place, please let me know! Using a throwaway account because I'm overprotective of privacy with this issue.

I'm dealing with a situation with a teacher/school right now and am trying to determine what the best course of action is. It involves a child in my life that I am deeply involved with but am not biologically related to and don't currently have custody of. In case the custody situation is relevant: bio parents are out of the picture (dad deceased, mom in jail), I've known him and been very involved in his care and life through my job for two years, and I had temporary custody after mom's most recent arrest for about three months. Two months ago, custody was changed to a kinship placement with his grandmother, with the current intention being to return custody back to me and my partner once we complete the foster licensing process. (His grandmother is a fine placement for him right now but she's getting up there in age and can't handle a child with relatively high needs forever). So, at the moment, legal guardianship is with the grandmother.

The situation: I discovered last night that his teacher (public middle school) has a TikTok account that's all about her life as a teacher. She seems to be trying to become one of those "teacher influencers" that are popular on TikTok. She only has a few hundred followers and her videos don't get a ton of views, but she still posts videos at least once a week of "teacher content"--including videos that clearly show the faces of the children in her classroom. My child is in multiple videos.

I know that for a lot of people, this wouldn't be a huge deal, but I literally started sobbing and almost vomited when I found this. I'm not going to go into any more detail than what's strictly necessary for understanding the situation, but CSAM exists of my child, and it is CSAM that's apparently widely shared. The only thing I could think of when I saw the TikTok videos was a predator seeing the videos too, recognizing my child, figuring out where he goes to school from his teacher's content, and using that information to find him in real life. Is that super likely to happen? Probably not. But is it a possibility? Yup. His mother (guardian at the time) DID NOT EVEN SIGN the school's photo release form at the start of the year for using his image in school district material because it's LEGITIMATELY UNSAFE for his image to be published online, particularly in association with a specific school (since that reveals location). Being posted without his consent like this could also be very upsetting or even traumatic for my child to find out, as he is aware of the CSAM and is deeply, deeply traumatized by the fact that it exists and is online, so being posted by someone online is likely to be very triggering for him.

When I found his teacher's TikTok account last night, I contacted my child's grandmother to let her know, and she's thankfully as upset as I am about it. We have a meeting with the school administration this afternoon to discuss the issue. His grandmother and I will be the ones attending.

We obviously want the TikToks showing his face immediately taken down, and for him to never be featured in any TikToks in the future. We also feel so betrayed and violated by the teacher doing this in the first place. It would be one thing if she told us at the start of the year, "Hey, by the way, I sometimes post TikToks featuring the kids in my class, is it okay with you if your child is in them?" But we had no idea that she'd been posting these for the entire school year up until this point!

He's attending a different, alternative school next year (not because there's anything wrong with this school--well, until now--but he requires a different learning environment and higher level of theraputic care than a standard public school can provide). His grandmother said she wants the child removed from the teacher's class immediately regardless of what the school does about the TikTok issue, which I'd like to speak with my child's therapist about first because I'm not sure the disruption would be good for him (if she continues to post TikToks of him, obviously he needs to be out of the class, of course).

And maybe it's just because we feel so angry right now, but we want the teacher and maybe the school held accountable in some way. I understand that she meant no harm, but she's supposed to be responsible for the welfare of her students. I feel that she legitimately put him in danger, and who knows how many other kids in that class could also be unsafe to post online due to similar situations, custody disputes, etc? And was the school knowingly allowing her to do so? I don't know exactly what I want in terms of accountability, but I feel like something needs to happen.

What kind of accountability can we reasonably ask for when it comes to the teacher and the school? Am I overreacting by wanting anything besides the removal of the videos done? And is this something that can be regulated by the school in the first place, since the teacher was posting the videos to a personal social media account, not on anything associated with the school? Does my kiddo have a reasonable expectation to privacy inside the classroom, or can she technically post public content of him without guardian permission?