A 5-year-old pre-kindergarten student is back home safe after wandering away from his school unnoticed. Now his parents want to know how it happened, and why they were not notified.
A good Samaritan found the boy weary but unharmed. She walked him back to Raymond Avenue Elementary School in South Los Angeles.
Apparently only then did school administration realize, and the parents learn, that the boy had been missing.
The incident happened the week of May 8. The parents expressed gratitude to the neighbor, but remain concerned by what led to the situation, and Friday spoke out for the first time in search of further explanation, and assurance that school protocols will prevent another such incident.
"He was tired, he was dirty, he was hungry," said father Deandre Hendley of his son Deandre III, whom they call "Saki," when the family was reunited in the school office.
The troubling turn of events began when a family mix up led to Saki not being picked after school from the playground with the other transitional kindergartners.
The parents had arranged for Saki's uncle to bring him home, but only later learned the uncle ran late, they said. Saki's teacher took him to the school office and signed him in there.
At some point, Saki left the office, and went outside onto Raymond Avenure. The parents said school officials later told them no one saw the boy leave, and the office was not aware he was unaccounted for.
It appears he walked around the neighborhood for more than an hour before a neighborhood resident spotted him, and walked him back to the school. By then the front entrance was closed, but after a while the assistant principal became aware of them, and called Saki's mother Chavelia Hendley, she said.
It was the first she heard that Saki had not been picked up from school, much less gone missing, she said.
"We had no idea at all," Chavelia Hendley said.
The parents said the uncle did go by the office for Saki, but by then Saki apparently had already left. Not seeing him, the uncle assumed the parents had come after all to pick him up, but did not call to check. As a result, the parents concluded Saki was staying with his uncle when he did not come home, but did not call him to check.
"We all wish we would have made that phone call," said Chavelia Hendley. "But at the same time, the person who was definitely supposed to make the call was the school to notify."
Neither of the parents, nor their designated emergency contact, was called after the pickup mix-up and Saki was brought to the office, they said.
Another concern for them was the apparent failure of the office staff to learn from the office sign-in/sign-out sheet that Saki had never been signed out, and yet was gone.
"We cannot comment on the specific case as all student matters are confidential," LA Unified School District spokesman Samuel Gilstrap said in an email. "I did learn that schools follow consistent protocols in these circumstances."
The parents said they are not at all convinced the school followed district protocol. Apart from not being notified when Saki was taken to the office after school, they previously had observed other parents picking up their children from the office without signing out, they said.
"They said they would follow procedures now, but I can't leave his life in their hands again," Chavelia Hendley said. With this school year almost over, they intend to transfer him to another LAUSD school in the fall.
The good Samaritan neighbor left the school before the Hendley parents arrived. They said they don't know she is, but are grateful to her.
