Every new thing I learn about this makes the situation seem even worse, like:
they DIDN’T inform park officials that the boy like the first coverage claimed, nor did they inform police
the boy was legally blind, having left his glasses on the bus because he was afraid they would get lost on a ride (it was a water park they were at). He was being led around by a classmate. (A personal note: I too am legally blind without my glasses, and it’s usually not as dangerous or handicapping as it sounds. While I couldn’t read anything more than about 3 inches away, I can walk around in public safely. I wouldn’t be in danger of stepping into a ditch or in front of an oncoming car. That’s not to say his vision might not be much worse than mine.)
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Once when I was twelve, I got separated from my mom – er, I hung out in the downtown Chicago’s Marshall Field toy department and failed to meet my mon when I promised). She knew I had some money, she knew I knew how to get home on public transportation, and had done so alone several times on public transportation, and she STILL called the police! And they found me! My mom thought I might be on a train (which I was), and said so to the police. They contacted the Illinois Central, who radioed the trains and ordered the conductors to make an announcement over the PA systems, “If Boyo Jim is aboard, please report to the conductor.” Hearing that, I think, was about the most surprised moment of my life. I reported to the guy, who sent word back and then scolded me some, and then I went back to my seat and went home. Maybe that’s why I find it so hard to believe that no one contacted any authorities about this.
I find it very hard to believe no adult even called the police, much less volunteered to stay behind and help look for him!
And, no policy? Schools are filled with policy! My MIL is a high school teacher in that area of Wisconsin, and they have a policy about not allowing students to leave the county for school related events during an Orange Alert! I’m certain they have a policy for what to do if someone’s left behind on a field trip!
I also think that leaving a fifth grader behind is much worse than leaving a high schooler behind. And the Dells, IIRC, isn’t very pedestrian-friendly. If his parents had left their kid behind there rather than asking the police for help when he was lost, they’d be in trouble with CPS!
If my kid were at that school, I’d probably never sign a field trip permission form again.
I almost got left in Paris on a school band trip. I was supposed to get a wake-up call, but never got one. Being sixteen, I just kept sleeping.
Luckily (or unluckily, depending on how you look at it) for me, my roomate was supposed to be on the second plane for the group, and we got his wake-up call a couple of hours later. After a mad dash to the airport, I made it with literally minutes to spare.
I still can’t understand why they didn’t do a head count on the bus outside the hotel.
Anyway, they were totally gonna leave me. Little hellion that I was at the time, they thought I’d decided to stay in Paris and ditched.
It would have been pretty cool. Except for the fact that I was out of money and spoke absolutely no French. But still…
Out here, in elementary school, teachers legally would have to stay behind until the missing kid was found.
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I do remember one similar incident when I was in OAC (Grade 13 in Ontario, which as of this year no longer exists). Our band teacher had taken us to Toronto, over a weekend, to see a couple of musicals. The parents and the kids (on average 18 years old) were told that if they didn’t show up in time for the bus, we’d wait for them 30 minutes then leave… Kids and parents signed the “contract”.
We left two kids and an adult who was with them because they didn’t show… according to the hotel staff, they showed up 3 hours late at our rendez-vous point and were wondering why we had left without them! So, they were stranded there… took the bus back to Ottawa, apparently. No one ever argued about it… and the rest of us thought it was rather funny.
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Of course, we’re talking about young ADULTS here, not 5th graders! How scary!
I don’t think it’s standard procedure to leave high schoolers behind either- or at least it shouldn’t be. I remember they did a roll call of some kind on the bus on our trips. I don’t think you should leave anyone behind just because they were a little late. It’s pretty fucking rude. If it were a group of adults agreeing to meet and car pool somewhere, would you just leave out someone who was running behind?
Well, Zoggie, yes. If you warned them that if they were more than a half an hour late, then by all means, leave them. They were forewarned. There is no way that it’s acceptable to be three hours late and expect people to wait for you. That’s rude.
As to the op, it’s just unacceptable that the teachers would leave. It’s bad enough that it was a fifth grader, but the fact that he didn’t have his glasses and they didn’t even notify anyone there that he was missing…they should suffer some major consequences.
It’s not standard procedure to leave any kid behind, high school or not, where I teach. Two years ago we had a girl meet up with her older boyfriend while on a field trip. After calling the police and waiting for hours, the bus finally left. Even then one of the chaperones stayed behind. The little sleaze showed up at home the next day, proud she’d screwed everybody over.