ESCONDIDO, Calif. -- North County parents are on alert after reports of a man who tried to lure a young girl into his truck last week.

The incident occurred Friday near Bear Valley Middle School and L.R. Green Elementary School in Escondido, according to the Escondido Police Department.

Police said a man tried to get an eighth-grade student into his truck near Kit Carson Park last Friday morning. They said the same man was spotted again in the same area Wednesday morning.

Debbie Pfoser always walks her son, Sam, home from school but after learning about the recent incidents, she said she is sick with worry.

"Very nervous, very nervous … and then my girlfriend called me later on about it and she has daughters. I feel like even when he gets in high school I'll probably walk him and pick him up," said Pfoser.

On Wednesday night, Pfoser and other parents in the Escondido Union School District received a message from the superintendent that told them about the potentially dangerous stranger and warned them to talk to their children.

"We ask that parents please speak with their children about proper precautions, including speaking to any persons that they do not know," said Escondido Union School District Superintendent Jennifer Walters.

"It kind of relieved me because they said they were gonna have teachers out there and they seemed like they were being proactive about it," said parent Melanie Eveland.

Police have stepped up patrols around the school, and they describe the man as Hispanic, between 30 and 40 years old with salt-and-pepper hair and a moustache and goatee. He drives what is described as a big black truck with a chrome grill.

School officials are telling parents to pick up their kids in front of the school and not in the back field of the schools where the suspicious man has been spotted.