Vancouver school officials have changed policy on student absentee notices in the wake of Monday’s incident of a wayward kindergarten pupil.
The district has activated its automatic phone alert system for absences this year, and next September will launch it immediately with the start of school.
The mother of 5-year-old Braiden Gonzalez did not get word her son was marked absent from kindergarten on Monday, his fourth day at Walnut Grove Elementary School. The boy instead had landed in a first-grade classroom — passing for another pupil there who had yet to attend class, with that teacher caught unaware.
Braiden turned up only after the school went into lockdown, drawing Clark County sheriff’s deputies, and security personnel lifted a surveillance photo of the boy that was distributed to all classrooms.
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Vancouver’s policy had been to not place automatic phone calls during the initial, chaotic week or so of school. The usual spate of classroom or school switches and late registration changes would result in many false-alarm calls, officials had reasoned.
No longer, the district’s security director told board members at Tuesday’s regular meeting. All calls to designated family contacts should go out by midmorning, under the automated call system.
Mick Hoffman conducted an “after-action review” with Walnut Grove’s principal, school workers and the district’s elementary education chief, Glenys Paveglio.
Also new: Vancouver will take digital photos of all pupils at the start of school rather than wait until October, as has been the norm, Hoffman said.
Such a photo in hand would have shaved much time off the search for Braiden.
The good news from Monday’s scramble, which lasted a good 90 minutes after morning kindergarten ended — when Braiden failed to file out of school with his young classmates — is that he remained safe in a classroom all along, district leaders noted.
What’s more, “I’m glad we invested in video technology, and that it works,” board member Dale Rice said on Tuesday.
Mother speaks
The announced changes may not satisfy Braiden’s mother, however.
Bethany Gonzalez phoned The Columbian with additional details from Monday, and said she wasn’t sure she would keep him at Walnut Grove.
She said Braiden was not led directly from his school bus to his classroom that morning. Videotape showed him standing outside several minutes without apparent help, she said.
Gonzalez said the first-grade teacher assumed Braiden was the no-show pupil and addressed him as such, despite his own name on his backpack. It wasn’t a ploy on his part, she said.
“Obviously, he’s scared,” Gonzalez said. “He’s going to agree to anything. He’s scared, it’s the fourth day of school.”
No lapse found
Vancouver’s security review found no fault with morning oversight that day and there’s no plan to change procedure, Paveglio said.
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Beginning pupils aren’t escorted straight to class, but Walnut Grove has a separate fenced area and entry just for kindergartners, she said. She and other district officials said further details about how or when Braiden got separated from peers could not be given, for privacy reasons.
“The procedure that Walnut Grove had was sound, and kindergartners were in protected areas,” Paveglio said. “They (kindergarten pupils) practice that, and did practice that the first day of school.”
As in Vancouver, Battle Ground and Evergreen districts report that schoolteachers and other workers are stationed outside primary and elementary schools to guide arriving youngsters — especially kindergarten pupils, and especially early in the school year. Volunteers often supply extra help.
“Parents need to know that there’s not a laissez-faire system,” said Tom Nadal, Evergreen elementary education director.
At Glenwood Heights Primary School in the Battle Ground district, six adults — double the usual three — stand watch during the first several days. A few of them check on pupils unloading from buses or cars, while one serves as an “air traffic controller” to steer kindergartners all the way to classrooms or collection points where teachers are waiting, the school’s leader said.
“We have a visual on them all the way,” said David Kennedy, first-year Glenwood Heights principal.
Rude surprise
Some Walnut Grove parents expressed surprise on Monday they weren’t alerted the school was in lockdown mode, as it occurred.
In general, a lockdown means all exterior doors are locked and no one may enter or exit the campus due to a possible security breach — or, in many cases, a nearby crime or neighborhood incident that could endanger the school.
A full lockdown, in which no movement is allowed within the building — students stay put in their classroom, for the duration — is much more serious.
The Vancouver district did not use its website or Twitter account to notify parents, Sork said.
“Typically, we would send a letter home with students at the end of the day,” she said. And, that’s what happened.
A check with Clark County’s largest three school districts found no set policy to employ Twitter, Facebook or other real-time links to alert parents in any case of a lockdown: Evergreen and Battle Ground said each incident is handled differently, depending on severity and duration.
“We do what law enforcement wants us to do,” said David Gray, Battle Ground assistant superintendent who oversees security matters. Having upset parents flock to a campus may impede officers at the scene, he noted.
“In any case, most of our lockdowns are have been short-lived and would be over before parents could arrive,” Gray said.
Battle Ground and Evergreen also send written notice home with students following each lockdown, officials said.
