School Pickup Mixup
A Hamilton County 3rd-grader is sent home from school with a complete stranger. Neither the child nor the adult realized the mix-up until they were on the way home and now the child's mother is outraged. The family member did not know what the child he was supposed to pick up looked like. The child got in the car with the stranger and the school allowed it to happen. The child's mother, Charity Ball said, "He did what he was told. He didn't question, and that breaks my heart as his mother that he just went that easily." Ball admits her child never should have gotten in the car with a man he didn't know. But she says this is not her 9-year-old's fault, it's Hixson Elementary's. "You do not let a child go just because a man walked up and gave a name," she said.
According to schools' spokesperson Danielle Clark, a man who had family permission to pick-up a kindergarten student he did not know that well, came to the school and asked for the child by his first name only. Without making the man sign-in or out.. the school brought out the wrong child, but with the same first name. The 9-year-old thought the man was a family friend, so he got in the car with him. The two soon realized the mistake and the man returned immediately to the school. The principal did not contact the parents. Clark said she wanted to collect all the facts first.
"She has apologized and says in hindsight, maybe she should've called, " said Clarke.
Clark says the school made two mistakes... once when the teacher didn't check the sign-out list, and again when after-care allowed the boy to leave.
Ball said, "I am so extremely lucky. I am sitting here and my child is okay, and so many children are not okay, and he is okay. All I could think about is 'what if,' on the way to that school, just what if, what if."
Clark said, "When there's a student being picked up by someone from a parent request that's not on the emergency card, that student's name will now be on a clipboard with the teacher who calls back to get the students. The person picking that child up will have to sign them out, as will the teacher releasing them."
