The mother of a 4-year-old boy with autism went to pick him up from a Capitol Hill elementary school Monday afternoon only to find out no one seemed to know where he was.
“Everybody’s just running around the building looking for my child,” Diane Cook said.
She described what she estimates to be 10 to 15 frantic, excruciating minutes after she arrived at Shirley Chisholm Elementary School on G Street SE.
“A janitor came around the corner with my child in his hand and said that he was in the parking lot of Shirley Chisholm, no adult supervision,” Cook said. “He’s autistic, and he was just outside by himself.”
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The boy hadn't been properly supervised and left his class then exited the building through a gymnasium door, principal Jasmine Brann said in an email to families.
The school parking lot where her son was found is adjacent to a busy street – an especially dangerous place for her son to be wandering unsupervised, Cook said.
“He’s autistic, he’s non-verbal, he’s prone to fire, he’s prone to water and he’s prone to running in the street where cars is, where he was found,” Cook said.
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School officials apologized, Cook said, and told her, by email, that the matter had been the subject of a staff conference.
“Official DCPS communication was also sent to the entire school community that evening regarding the lack of supervision incident,” the email read.
In the email, Brann said the school is committed to providing a safe environment for students. The incident is under investigation and was reported under D.C. Public Schools protocol, including notifying the D.C. Child and Family Services Agency, the email said.
"While the student was unharmed and brought back to the main entrance of the building by a staff member, we take student supervision very seriously," the email said.
Cook wants to see school security camera video to see how her son got outside alone, but, she said, school officials told her the camera system was under repair at the time of Monday’s incident.
The school offered her the option to have her son transferred to another school, but Cook said that decision is very difficult because she really likes her son’s teachers at Shirley Chisholm.
Brann also said the family of the boy was offered support from the school-based wellness team.
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