I think it was someone else who picked the kid up, not Mrs. Pollard. Or I gleaned that from the article. Saying she was a "stranger" might have been overstating it, but the school shouldn't release a child to anyone other than the parents without written permission small town or not. I doubt that was the case since they immediately went into kidnap mode.
I actually went to the elementary school in Scooba in the 2nd and 3rd grades. My teacher was Margie Aust ... she died when I was in the 3rd and they subsequently named the school after her. If there's a better teacher in the world than "Miss Margie", I can't imagine who it would be. She was absolutely fantastic.