Dad shocked another child left behind
A Rousseau elementary school parent says he is shocked and disappointed to learn of the four-year-old who wandered away from the same school where his own children went missing last year.
Todd Clyde — who says his twin fouryear-olds went missing briefly in 2016 from Rousseau school — was reacting to news of a boy in junior kindergarten who wandered away from the Ancaster school last month before being found outside his home by the principal.
Parents at the McNiven Road school were informed this week about that incident through letters Principal John Gris sent home with his students. The letters were sent after the boy’s story appeared in the local media.
Clyde is annoyed such an incident happened again after it happened to his family in May 2016 when his twin four-year-old son Mason and daughter Lilah wandered away, he says.
“I think other parents will be appalled to know that it happened (before) and nothing has changed,” he said.
“I feel like we only know about this incident because it was in the media,” Clyde says. “With us, I felt it was swept under the rug.”
Public board spokesperson Shawn McKillop said the board is very concerned to learn about the Clyde children’s experience and invited the family to get in touch with the school again as it investigates and reviews its safety procedures.
“We are incorporating this information as we complete our investigation (into the boy who wandered off last month).”
In the Clyde case, he says his twins told him they were locked out of the school after everyone returned inside from recess. The twins and another female classmate had decided to play a game and hid in the woods nearby when everyone went in, Clyde says his children told him.
The children soon returned to the school but found the doors locked. They were only able to get inside after pounding on one of the doors and being let in by two older students, he says.
McKillop said part of the investigation will also review communications protocol from the board to parents.