DELTONA, Fla. – A 6-month-old baby is dead after a Florida middle school teacher allegedly left the infant in an SUV in the school parking lot for the entire school day.

The Volusia County Sheriff’s Office told CNN a teacher at Deltona Middle School was caring for the child and accidentally left the baby boy in the back row of her SUV when she went to work last Friday.

Police received a 911 call just before 4 p.m. and dispatched a school resource officer to the vehicle. The officer arrived but it was obvious the child had been dead for a while, My News 13 reports.

MORE NEWS: Know These Before Moving From Cyprus To The UK

“I can’t say I’ve dealt with one on a school parking lot, but anytime (there’s) a loss of life gets us all, especially a child,” sheriff Ben Johnson told the news site. “This takes its toll on everybody involved, the faculty of the school, your deputies, everybody involved when you see a child lose its life, it always takes a toll on everybody.”

Temperatures were in the mid-80s in Deltona Friday and the child was in the Honda Pilot from the time the teacher arrived at 7 a.m. The teacher is related to the child and was tasked with caring for him, police said.

“I can tell you we have employees that are very shaken over this incident right now,” Johnson told News 6. “This is one of those that you don’t like being a sheriff.”

Volusia County Schools issued a statement about the incident.

“Our deepest sympathy goes out to the family and the Deltona Middle School community. This tragedy has broken the hearts of all of us in the school district,” the statement read. “We will stand by the family with love and compassion.”

Johnson said police have not yet determined whether criminal charges are warranted.

MORE NEWS: How to prepare for face-to-face classes

“It appears to be a tragic accident, but we still have to look to see if there are criminal charges there or not. We’ll investigate it thoroughly and will try to decide what we see,” he told News 6.

Many folks who commented on the story online believe the teacher deserves a stiff punishment.

“Through this teacher’s negligence, it has cost a family the loss of their child, accident or not there needs to be something more than just saying I’m sorry,” JustDosIt posted. “This teacher is negligent to the death of a child, and there should be some consequences to such an action.”

“They better come up with some serious charges,” ready_to_retire posted. “If they don’t, then you’re giving a free pass to anyone who wants to get rid of their child. All they have to do is pretend to cry a little and say they forgot, and all is forgiven.

“Children are the single most important thing in the lives of adults – it’s our responsibility to raise and care for them so they can become productive members of society. Anyone whose negligence causes the death of an innocent baby like this must be punished severely. I don’t care if ‘they’ve suffered enough already’ or not,” the post continued.

Wilted Willy agreed.

“There is no excuse for this, how stupid can you be tor forget about a baby in your care?” Willy wrote. “No mercy here, should be charged with murder!”

“There is ABSOLUTELY no excuse for what happened to this baby … NONE!” Floridianchic posted.