Patchogue schools apologize to wandering boy's family

As the superintendent of the Patchogue-Medford school district apologized yesterday to the family of a 6-year-old boy who wandered out of school and wound up on a Sunrise Highway service road, a school board ...

[liner]

Glad the little guy's OK. So far, the mother sounds like she's taking this intelligently, not running to some snaggle toothed lawyer for her lotto payout.

[Lawsuit]

Thank goodness the boy is OK. Someone needs to be held responsible for this incident!
If something happened to that little boy, what were they going to tell the mother, "I'm sorry?"
Oh,that will make things better.

She has good reason to start that lawsuit.
You have people out there suing the district because their son Johnny fell on a pebble on the playground or fell off a swing.

[concerned parent]

What is the Principle's responsibility in all this?

[Mother]

concerned parent wrote:

What is the Principle's responsibility in all this?

What is the principals responsibility? It is the Principals responsibility to ensure that the school is a safe place for all these children to be. It's not safe if any of them can get confused and walk out the door and wander wherever they want to. The safety and well being of these kids should be the number one priority for the principal. If anything happens to any of them, she/he will be the one that has to answer for it.

[taxpayer]

Stupid moron overpaid 100k per year babysitters. they are to worried about stealing as much money as they can to br bothered with watching kids.

[Debbie]

My children used to attend this school, my son was having a problem with bullying and the principal was trying to tell my son that he was imagining it. She cannot handle any situation, she should have been let go long ago. The children of this school are dismissed out the doors that face route 112, there is no fence between the school grounds and route 112. My son when he was in second grade was dismissed from his classroom on the second floor with no adult in attendance to just go to the front door and find me, anyone could have taken him home. Now this situation happens and they are all crying about how safe the schools are, yeah right. They need to worry about the children and not the damn pensions.This was bound to happen in that school, the mother needs to take them to the cleaners on this one and Mostow needs to go too. Thank God this child is okay.

[gng]

Someone at the front office should have known there was an assembly going on. It sounds as if there was a lack of communication by whomever was checking him in--that is, IF he was checked in. There are rumors that Mom just dropped him off without taking him inside. That might be part of the explanation, though it is not an excuse.

[Lor]

Crazyness.

[abby]

You are all right, but shouldn't the boy be taught that you just don't walk out of school he was 6 don't you think he should have known to go back to the office - he knew where his classroom was - but decided to walk out the side door anyways - we have to teach our children some responsibility

[Good money after bad]

Daniel has been diagnosed with selective mutism, a learning disability in which children sometimes remain silent in social situations.

I wish ALL children had this disorder. The problem with most kids is they don't know when to shut their big mouths. Kind of like their parents on the cellphone.

[Lawsuit]

abby wrote:

You are all right, but shouldn't the boy be taught that you just don't walk out of school he was 6 don't you think he should have known to go back to the office - he knew where his classroom was - but decided to walk out the side door anyways - we have to teach our children some responsibility

Article states the child has "autism."
Children with autism think and act differently than other children.

It is the school's responsibility to keep our children safe while on school grounds.

[Unheard of]

So, our tax dollars really protect kids, esp. a special kid, from wandering out on the highway. I don't care what the overpaid administration said, this is pure laziness and people work in school districts for their own interests, obviously, and not of the children they are serving. Keep an eye on all the schools and you will find this. It happened out in Orient, the kids were by the causeway before the teacher, who has been rumored to be tough on kids and doesn't like them but needs a job, and they just slapped wrists. Parents, turn a keen eye on who handles kids in your district.

[Tommy]

Shouldnt a child know better??? Come back to the office and be like My class isnt there. This is not entireley the schools fault. She needs to teach her child to return to the principals office when a class is not there. I did that when I was 7 and was dropped off late when my class was in Music.

[Hauppaugian]

Tommy wrote:

Shouldnt a child know better??? Come back to the office and be like My class isnt there.

You write like you're still 7

[Me Hung Too Low]

Patchogue-Medford that school is all Ghetto and white trash.

[Me Hung Too Low]

Patchogue-Medford I have been to this school many times, I was a sub teacher. I never seen a school so bad, this school belongs in the BRONX - the kids are animals, the parents are White Trash. This school is located in the most depressing area of long Island. This is Mastic, Shirley, Medford, Ghetto Trailer Park Trash at it's best! Parents are all Section 8, Wic, wellfare, 80% of the kids get free lunches becuase the parents qualify for it because they are loosers in this area.

[the mistake made]

It's very simple.

The mistake is made at the office which should know where each class is at that time.

Apparently the class was not there.

The office should have sent the boy to where the class was OR if the boy needed to unpack, simply had an office aide walk down with him to the classroom, wait for him to unpack, and then walk with him to where the class was.

The blame lies with the administration at the elementary school although I'm sure they'll find some $8 an hr employee to blame it on.

[the mistake made]

I worked in a different elementary school and school district. There were simple procedures in place and common sense. For instance we once had a kindergartner who we knew would attempt to run out of the school at some point during the year. instead of blaming the kindergartner, we took precautions.

And one day, those precautions were needed when the child try to run out of the school in which I was notified within 5 seconds of this attempt and the child was quickly retrieved by me.

But it all started with the planning and common sense.

There seemed to be no common sense here. The office staff (or nurse staff) that admits late children MUST know BEFORE school starts where each class is at all given times. If there's an assembly scheduled that day, all staff should be notified of the changes the day before.

[Rob Cormier]

Hearing a story like this scares me. My Daughter has SM, and I know if she was ever in a situation in which she needed to speak to someone (if she was lost), she would not be able to talk to tell anyone who she is or where she lives. I am glad that this Boy was returned safely.

Rob Cormier
http://smsg.baseman.ca - SM Support Group

[Debbie]

hi hung to low thank you for justifying what I said this school is dangerous, this is the second time an incident of this type took place in the district. When we lived there we would get automated messages all the time about incidents of guns being brought to schools in the district, last year a 5th grader in one of the elementary schools threatened to kill the nurse and all the 5 year olds. I am speaking from experience I all but gave my house away to get away from those schools and my as#hole neighbors.