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How does this happen? Man picks up wrong kid from school (news story)

RondackHikerRondackHiker member
in Parenting
Basically a great-grandpa picked up the wrong kindergartner and drove him all the way home. His wife noticed the issue when the poor little boy refused to get out of the car and they drove him back to the school.

The school seriously screwed up... but I am also wondering why great-grandpa is driving/picking up children if he doesn't know the kid well enough to tell he has the wrong child. 



https://www.wggb.com/2014/02/26/conn-parents-upset-after-man-picks-up-wrong-child-home-from-school/

Parents Upset After Man Picks Up Wrong Child from Conn. School
February 26th, 2014

STERLING, Conn. (AP) — Parents in a small eastern Connecticut town say they’re upset and demanding action by local officials after a man went to a school to pick up his great-grandson and took the wrong child home.

The 5-year-old boy’s mother and other parents criticized school officials in Sterling during a local Board of Education meeting Tuesday night.

The boy’s mother, Angela Stone, says the incident happened Friday afternoon at Sterling Community School. She says her son refused to get out of the man’s car at his home, and the man’s wife noticed the mistake. The man drove the boy back to the school.

Stone called school officials incompetent and said they should be disciplined.

School Superintendent Rena Klebart acknowledges mistakes were made and says officials are making changes to prevent similar incidents.



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Re: How does this happen? Man picks up wrong kid from school (news story)

  • BluepointToastedBluepointToasted member
    What?!?!  So many questions.  Poor kid must have been so scared and confused.  And yes, why is this man picking up the child if he doesn't know him by sight? 
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  • RondackHikerRondackHiker member
    msdrdg said:
    A:  Don't they check who the kids are going with?
    B:  GG'pa doesn't know which on he's supposed to get?
    C:  Where was the right kid during all this?  Just sitting lonely by himself outside the school?
    D:  Good for the wrong kid for not getting out of the car, but why did he get in in the 1st place?
    I could see a shy or quiet kid being told to get into the car or go with this man by an authority figure like a teacher or someone and just doing it.

    I would hope a teacher who knew the kid well would recognize he was stressed/upset but if the teacher was distracted or thought the kid was sick or something and thought the upset was due to that... 

    I don't know. Poor kid. He must have been so scared.


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  • robyn2201robyn2201 member
    How the heck does this happen?!
    Ivy: July 2010  |  Stella: Dec 2012  |  BFP#3: MMC at 11Wk's, July 2017 | Wyatt: April 2019 | BFP#5: Twin Girls due Sept 2020

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  • NeneCakiesNeneCakies member
    A similar incident happened a few months ago I recall. A grandpa took the wrong kid from school to a DOCTOR'S appt! The kid was examined and got meds and all that. Unreal.
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  • kat8805kat8805 member
    I've gotten the side-eye before when picking up one of my brothers when he was sick and no one else was available to go get him. It was my first time in that school, but I am listed as an emergency contact/PU person. Granted, my brothers are 12, but they checked with him before they would let us walk out the door, and my mother called ahead of time to make sure they knew it would be me picking him up.

    It is beyond me how any of this could have happened. Sounds like GGpa not only needs kid duties suspended... but should this guy be driving? If GGma was home, why didn't she accompany him? And why are GGparents that don't even recognize their own GG kid on the PU list to begin with?
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  • secretsoutsecretsout member
    See, I could see myself at that age being too scared or shy to speak up, even if I was being sent in the car with a person I didn't know.  Which really scares me now that I have my own child, because I would hope my child would at least say, "I don't know this person" and someone might take a second look at things. 

    I also don't get how this grandparent would be familiar enough to pick up the kid but not familiar enough to recognize his own grandson.  And it isn't like they are tiny infants who maybe kind of sort of (not really) could be mistaken because they're both bald and squishy or something.  But 5 year olds? 

    This story doesn't even make sense to me. 


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  • ASmallWonderASmallWonder member
    So many questions.

    This does remind me of when Aiden was first born - like 2 months old and I had a cookout with a bunch of friends with babies the same age.  I caught my dad cooing and making faces at one of them who was laying on a blanket and I was all "Dad, you know that's not Aiden...right?"  But he gets a pass because babies look like babies.
    Formerly known as elmoali :)

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  • RondackHikerRondackHiker member
    elmoali said:

    So many questions.


    This does remind me of when Aiden was first born - like 2 months old and I had a cookout with a bunch of friends with babies the same age.  I caught my dad cooing and making faces at one of them who was laying on a blanket and I was all "Dad, you know that's not Aiden...right?"  But he gets a pass because babies look like babies.
    This made me laugh.


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  • RatpastaRatpasta member
    edited February 2014
    This actually happened to me in preschool.  A lady walked up to me and talked to me by name and said that my mom told her to pick me up.  Since I was the only kid in school with that name I went with her. 
    She was very nice.  She took me to this HUGE house and made me a sandwich.  Turns out she was the nanny for a new rich family in town with a kid of the same name.  
    Needless to say my parents freaked out when they got there to pick me up....
    but it does happen
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  • wiggyslilsiswiggyslilsis member
    Our elementary schools nearby all have different pickup policies. One you have to go in and show your ID to a staff member who has a list of all the kids in that class and who is allowed to pick them up. (This is all in place because a kid got kidnapped from there)

    I picked up my cousins from another school in the area and all I did was sit in the parking lot and all the kids came running out and gotinto cars or wwalked home if they lived within a mile of the school. It terrified me because anybody could pick those kids up. It was especially worrisome because their dad was making threats to kidnap them and he could have just picked them up and mom would never know because they walk home. I know the mom could walk or drive to the school to get them in this situation I just saw a lot of room for error.
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