CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- A woman is charged with embezzling $17,000 from a fund at East Iredell Elementary School.

As students headed home from East Iredell Elementary School Friday afternoon, word spread that money kids have raised and parents have given for the Parent-Teacher Organization has disappeared.

The treasurer, Scotti Starnes, is accused of embezzling the cash.

"It's very, very ugly that people can do something like that," said fifth-grader Shelby Reeves.

Police said the crimes began a little more than a year ago. They said Harnes wrote checks to herself and then cash them.

But it was a bill that came back from a fund-raiser marked "unpaid" that raised the suspicion of board members of the PTO.

An audit showed something wasn't right, and police were called. That led to Harnes' arrest.

Annie Watts sends her grandchildren to East Iredell. She said it's not just their hard-earned money that's gone, but it's money that would go to help them learn.

"I'm very angry because the children are suffering. It's just not fair that someone is getting away with it," she said.

A question many parents are asking is how could this have gone on for 15 months without anyone checking up on the PTO's finances?

"That's what I kind of wonder. How did she get away with it that long to conceal that kind of theft?" said Watts.