By Cynthia Grau
PONTIAC – After a kindergarten student went missing from Central School in Pontiac last week for less than an hour, several procedures were re-evaluated and new ones put in place throughout all of District 429.
Superintendent Brian Dukes said a kindergarten student left the school after returning to her classroom from an art class. She found the room dark, so she got her bag and walked a couple blocks home.
“It was a very scary time period for all of us involved,” Dukes said. “Ultimately the child was in front of her house playing. One of the neighbors had seen the student out front and we were able to find her and bring her back home.”
Dukes said in Principal Kel Krenz’s more than ten years at the school, this had never happened, so they refined some procedures.
“It was a unique situation but obviously at Central School, we learned a few things we need to improve,” Dukes said. “We have a buddy system that’s in place over there where two kids are together as they go from one place to another. So, that’s something we reinforced with staff last week.”
They are also adding more radios on more staff to broadcast when a child leaves a classroom to the place where they’re going so all children are accounted for.
After the child was found safe, news broke throughout the community, and Dukes said parents were very understanding of the incident and the work they’re doing to prevent it from happening again.
“We didn’t get a whole lot of parents calling with concerns, and I truly believe that has to do with the trust parents do have with our school system. They believe us, entrusting us every single day when they do send their kid to us and we take a great deal of pride in that,” Dukes said. “With that being said, we fully own this incident and it starts with me as the superintendent. We fully own this incident and we’ve learned from this to make us better to avoid a situation like this again and we’re going to move forward with the new procedures in place.”
Cynthia Grau can be reached at [email protected].
