Anecdote: a client went to see their daughter, and their classmates approached him and hugged him, and this was seen as highly inappropriate, and they ended up having to move schools. That was California.
I'm in my 30s and in the Southeast so definitely a different world, positively and negatively, but I don't see how that's inappropriate unless he forced the classmates into hugging him or made some kind of scene.
That's the thing, with context, it doesn't seem inappropriate, especially as kids approached him, and I would almost argue that the failure was on behalf of the school for letting someone walk in and be near kids, but they didn't see it that way.
But in today's climate, they informed the parents what happened, they socially ostracized him and his daughter, assumed the worst because they were denied the full context of intent.
The world is a hugely different place now.