A mother in Westchester County says her 5-year-old son, who is nonverbal and has autism, wandered out of school unnoticed.
April Vinson says her son walked away from Jefferson Elementary School in New Rochelle last Wednesday during lunch.
“Such a scary feeling to almost lose your child and to not have people take it seriously enough,” Vinson said.
She says she is the one who realized he had disappeared, thanks to an alert on her phone from a tracking app, and called the school.
“They said, ‘No, he’s fine.’ And then there was someone else who said ‘Oh, he’s right in front of me, he’s okay,” Vinson said.
Vinson took administrators at their word, but at the end of the school day, when her son was already on the bus home, she got a call from the school admitting the kindergartner had left the building but had been found safely within two minutes.
Vinson remains skeptical, given that the app shows the boy traveled a couple of blocks over 7 minutes. She hopes other families take notice.
“I hope that parents get trackers for their children so that even if the school district doesn’t call them right away, they are able to see something is going on with their child,” Vinson said.
The district says the matter is under investigation and that additional door alert systems are being installed, saying “we will also require mandatory, additional staff training focused on preventive student safety measures in our classrooms and buildings.”
Still, Vinson is angry over what she says is a double standard.
“If that were us and we left our son outside on a playground or we left him in the car, immediately action would be taken, CPS would be called, but in this case, it was like ‘oh, he wasn’t harmed.’ So there’s nothing that the police can do,” Vinson said.
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