Texas child, 8, leaves school undetected

Published 10:30 am Tuesday, September 12, 2017

KEENE, Texas.– A Texas mother dropped her son off at elementary school one morning only to find him at home a couple of hours later.

Ariel Gillaspie came home about 2:15 p.m. Friday to find her 8-year-old son, Braden, at home instead of at school where he was supposed to be.

An hour and a half earlier, the Keene Elementary School’s camera system caught the third-grader leaving the school undetected.  

It’s about a 15-minute walk from the school to their house, Ariel Gillaspie said.

“When I got home he was crying,” she said. “I was trying to figure out what happened. I raced him back to school thinking the school called the cops and that people were looking for him.”

When they returned to the school, she said no one knew he was missing.

“From what my son told me, his teacher really upset him,” she said. “He asked for a restroom pass. He left the pass in the restroom, walked out one of the doors and walked home. My son could have gotten run over by a car. He could have been kidnapped. It scared me. I had so many emotions going on at once.”

She’s not sure exactly what happened to make her son want to come all the way home, but he said his teacher yelled and scolded him and that interaction scared him.  

Keene ISD Superintendent Ricky Stephens said he can’t comment on student disciplinary actions, but the teacher is one of their best and any insinuation that she would scream, holler and scare one of her students is not consistent with her character.

The district became a District of Innovation last year and he said they have had many policy changes, including how students can sit in the classroom.

“One of the things that our innovation initiative has really embraced is flexible seating,” he said. “These changes in the norm have created some unknown ‘pitfalls’ that require additional supervision and direction.”

Instead of students sitting in desks, students can now stand up, sit on the floor, sit on a bean bag chair or sit on an exercise ball during class while working on their lessons.

He said the school is not taking the situation lightly and has created some new policies to address the situation.

From now on, each elementary student will be assigned a “buddy” and must keep track of where their “buddy” is at all times. If their “buddy” is missing, then they will alert the teacher.

They also created a “bunny pass” system where instead of using a regular hall pass, when students need to use the restroom or leave the class for any reason they will put a stuffed bunny or another type of toy or unusual item in their seat to alert their teacher that they have left their seat and are out of the room.

“Even though the student intentionally left the building, it’s still our responsibility that his departure went unnoticed,” Stephens said. “Safety and security is huge at Keene ISD.”  

He said there are more 150 cameras to keep track of what happens in the school.

Ariel Gillaspie’s husband, Justin Gillaspie, said he met with the school’s principal Monday morning to talk about the new policies the school will soon implement.

“I’m OK with them,” he said. “I believe that they will work. It will keep a better eye on them.”

Ariel Gillaspie said she has moved her son to a different class and is glad the school is implementing new policies to address the situation.

Rose writes for the Cleburne, Texas Times-Review.