Teacher turns to Ted after delivery delays with surprise for students

ALVIN, Texas (KTRK) -- Megan Goodman missed seeing her pre-kindergarten students every day when schools across Texas went to online learning this spring during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"It hurt," Goodman told ABC13's Ted Oberg. "I teach them ABCs, I teach them their numbers and all of that is important. But the piece that my kids need so much is that connection. They need to know that there's somebody that cares about them. That they're smart, that they're important. They need to have that interaction with other kids."

Goodman, a pre-kindergarten teacher at Alvin Independent School District's Melba Passmore Elementary School, said, at first, she thought schools would just be closed for a week or two as they cleaned the building. She was looking forward to taking her students on a field trip the Friday after Spring Break.

The trip was canceled, and soon she realized she wouldn't be back in the classroom with her students anytime soon.

She started doing weekly video calls with her kids to substitute in-person classes. Not all of them could always join, but during one of those calls, she said a student who loves learning and is typically happy and energetic looked sad. Goodman said she asked him what was wrong and he said he missed his friends.

That's when Goodman said she knew she had to do something special for her students.

She ordered yard signs from Houston-based Imprint.com that read "My Pre-K Teacher Misses Me!" on the front. Her plan was to write a personalized message on the back of the signs and hand deliver them to each student as a surprise and so that they knew she still cares about them.

She ordered the signs on April 28, thinking she would get them well before school was out since the delivery date was set for May 11. That day came and went, so she reached out to the company, who she she said told her due to COVID-19 it would take four weeks from the order date for delivery.

When that date came and she still didn't have the signs, she Turned to Ted on May 26. We called Imprint.com's customer service. A representative took down our information and Goodman's information and said she'd follow-up with the concern.

Goodman said it was important that she got the signs before summer, just in case any of her students moved and she wasn't able to find them.

"I sent y'all an email and told y'all what was going on and that maybe y'all could help a little bit and y'all did. Amazingly the order was overnighted to me," Goodman said.

The company didn't tell the Turn to Ted team what caused the delay, but Goodman did receive the signs and stakes to put them in the ground days later, on May 29. She hand delivered them the following Monday and told parents to let their children know to expect a surprise from their teacher.

"They were so excited, (thinking) 'What could Ms. Goodman be bringing me,'" she said. "They loved it. I absolutely loved it. Several of them were able to come out while I was putting them in the yards so I got to see them and give them hugs and tell them how much I miss them. One mom sent me an email and said that her son was so excited when she saw the sign that he wanted to bring it in and take it to bed with him."