Vice-principal makes plea to tooth fairy after kindergarten student loses tooth at school

Kids are normally able to put their lost baby teeth under their pillow hoping for a payment from the tooth fairy. But what if the tooth falls out and goes missing at school?

Gavin Jensen, a five-year-old kindergarten student in Prince George, B.C., was faced with this dilemma this week when one of his teeth fell out in class.

Seeing how upset he was, the vice-principal of Hart Highlands Elementary School wrote a formal plea to the fabled fairy to make sure Gavin got his due reward. 

"Please accept this letter as official verification of a lost tooth and provide the standard monetary exchange rate you normally use for a real tooth," Shandee Whitehead wrote in a letter under the school's masthead. 

"As a trained vice-principal and hobby dentist, I can verify that there is definitely a gap in Gavin's teeth that was not there this morning when he came in."

Whitehead says she learned Gavin had dropped one of the teeth after it came out of his mouth before lunch on Tuesday.

"When I went into the classroom, he was actually quite upset," she told Sarah Penton, host of CBC's Radio West. "He lost it from his mouth and then he couldn't find it in the room." 

The vice-principal says she and other staff searched for it in every corner of the classroom.

"Despite the heroic efforts of a fearless search team, we were unable to recover it," Whitehead told the fairy.

Whitehead's amusing correspondence has become a sensation in her community after posting the letter on social media.

"In addition to contributing to a long-term plan for students' success, cultivating leadership in others, managing people, data and processes, and improving school leadership … a vice-principal has the duty of helping to create a positive school culture … one that saves the day!" Whitehead tweeted Tuesday.

She also took the opportunity to remind the tooth fairy about some outstanding payments she was owed.

"PS — I am still waiting for the money for my wisdom teeth from 2000. Please pay as soon as possible," Whitehead wrote at the end of the letter. "I have bills to pay."

While she is still waiting to get paid, Gavin received his reward on Thursday morning.

"When I woke up in the morning, the tooth fairy actually did come," he told Penton. 

"I got the coin…It was a gold and silver one." 

Tap the link below to hear the interview with Shandee Whitehead and Gavin Jensen on Radio West: