A New Rochelle mom claims her 5-year-old son wandered off, unsupervised, from his New Rochelle school last week.
April Vinson said that her son, Yesha, who’s nonverbal and has autism, left Jefferson Elementary School during lunch last Wednesday, Oct. 15 around 12:47 p.m. She was alerted by the AngelSense tracker app on her phone, which connects to a tracking device on Yesha’s person, that her son left the school.
According to the app, Vinson said, Yesha was outside for a total of 10 to 15 minutes.
Vinson, a small business owner, was at her warehouse when she received an alert on the app that her son’s tracking device was moving outside of the school. “So I’m like, ‘OK, maybe I’m going crazy. Let me just call my husband and see if he sees the same thing,'” she said.
He confirmed he did.
Vinson called Jefferson Elementary to check on her son, and the school said everything was fine.
“I explained to (the woman who answered the phone) we have a tracker on him,” Vinson said. “It seems like it’s moving outside the school.”
She even texted someone she knew who worked in her son’s class, who said her son was right in front of her.
At that point, Vinson said, it was “no worries. Because why would they lie to us?”
New Rochelle mom traumatized ‘just thinking about all the things that could have happened’ to her son
About three hours later, at the end of the school day, Vinson said the school’s principal and assistant principal called to tell her that her son had gotten out of the school building for two minutes earlier that day. They told Vinson that her son left the school through a cafeteria door and made it to a sidewalk near Weyman Ave.
“At that point, I pretty much lost it,” Vinson said. “I’m just crying my eyes out and just thinking about all the things that could have happened to him.”
Vinson said the school officials went on to explain that a cafeteria worker may have gone outside during the lunch period and didn’t put the safety latch back down on the door, possibly leading to Yesha being able to exit the building. The school officials told her they’ll write up whoever’s responsible, she said.
“For them to say that they’re going to write people up and everything, it does not fix the problem in my opinion,” Vinson said.
How New Rochelle School District responded
While the city school district of New Rochelle said it’s prohibited by federal privacy laws from speaking about any specific student, Superintendent Corey Reynolds said that “the safety and well-being of every student” is “paramount.”
“We are committed to continuous improvement in securing all our learning environments,” Reynolds said. “Any time an incident occurs in a school, it immediately triggers a thorough investigation and review of preventive measures.”
“As a result of a recent investigation,” Reynolds added, “the district is enhancing building security with additional door alert systems, which are already being installed. He said the district will “also require mandatory, additional staff training focused on preventive student safety measures in our classrooms and buildings.”
Mom wants new elopement, security policies in New Rochelle schools
Vinson said she is traumatized after the incident. She transferred Yesha to a new school. His first day was Tuesday, Oct. 21.
“If we’re sending our kids to school,” she said, “especially our kids with disabilities or autism, we’re sending them to school to be safe. Autistic parents, it’s PTSD every day because of what we go through with them in general. When we send them to school, we’re already on edge because it’s like, ‘God, I hope nothing happens today.'”
Vinson said she wants to see the district implement an elopment policy.
“Elopement means when a child — autistic, usually, a child with special needs — they run,” she said. “So they need an elopement policy that all the schools across the district need to follow.”
She thinks the district needs to hire more security personnel and train every school staff person how to deal with children with special needs and elopement — whether they work with special needs children or not.
She also wants the district to start sending out alerts to all parents about all incidents, so that parents can be aware. She said the district should offer a support group for parents who experience an incident like this.
“Because otherwise parents feel alone. They think that they’re going through this by themselves,” Vinson said.
“That was my whole point in speaking out, to let parents know you’re not alone,” she continued. “You do not have to send your child back to the school where it was unsafe. You have options.”
To get resources or learn more about elopement in children with autism, check out the National Autism Association online at nationalautismassociation.org/resources/wandering.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: New Rochelle mom says school let 5-year-old son with autism wander outside unattended
Reporting by Samantha Antrum, Rockland/Westchester Journal News / Rockland/Westchester Journal News
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