Special ed first-grader found on busy roadway
“I have been fighting for my daughter to ride the special needs bus since we started school. If they would have done what they were supposed to do by accommodating my baby with transportation … I don’t think any of this would have happened.” Mercedes Polk, the student’s mother
A 6-year-old special education student was found walking along a busy road in southeast Houston after an apparently botched dismissal last week at her Houston ISD elementary school.
The Houston Police Department received a call around 3:35 p.m. Thursday from someone at Lantrip Elementary School regarding the missing firstgrade student, according to a spokesperson.
Serenity Polk was found walking near the Gulf Freeway and Cullen Boulevard, according to police, more than a mile from her campus in the Greater Eastwood neighborhood.
Her mother, Mercedes Polk, said she arrived early, as usual, to pick up her daughter from school that afternoon. She waited more than an hour and eventually called the police because administrators brushed off her concerns when she went inside the school to find her daughter, she said.
“No one was concerned. Everyone was so nonchalant,” she said.
Put in wrong line
School staff apparently placed the girl in line with children who walk home from school instead of students who are picked up by drivers, according to police and the mother. Both groups of children have different colored badges to help facilitate the dismissal process.
Serenity is deaf in both ears and uses cochlear implants to aid her hearing, according to her mother. The child also has vision problems.
The mother eventually learned that a homeless man found her daughter at the busy intersection and called the school. When she reunited with Serenity, the girl was crying hysterically and shivering in fear, Polk said. The first-grader told her mother that she had been attempting to walk home, which is a 30minute drive from the school.
Before the incident, Polk said she had been pushing for the school to provide proper special education accommodations for her child, including transportation and a classroom aide during every period.
“I have been fighting for my daughter to ride the special needs bus since we started school,” she said. “If they would have done what they were supposed to do by accommodating my baby with transportation… I don’t think any of this would have happened.”
The incident has left both mother and daughter shaken up with stress and trauma.
“I do not feel as though my daughter is protected at all,” she said. “I don’t even want to bring her to school.”
‘This is unacceptable’
Candice Matthews, an activist with the New
Black Panther Nation, said she was outraged to learn about the incident. The girl could have been harmed by someone or struck by a car while walking along the high-traffic thoroughfare, she said, criticizing the school for its apparent negligence and lack of accountability surrounding school dismissal.
“I find it to be very disrespectful and distasteful for Superintendent Mike Miles to not even reach out to this mother,” she said. “This happened on his watch and this is unacceptable. Some people need to lose their jobs.”
An HPD spokesperson said police are not investigating because the incident does not appear to be criminal in nature.
Texas Child Protective Services, however, is investigating the incident at the school, according to a spokesperson from that agency who declined to release further details.
HISD said it is actively investigating the incident as well.
“Student safety is our top priority, and while we cannot comment on the specifics of the incident at this time, Campus and Division leaders will communicate with students and families as we work to strengthen our systems so to prevent future issues,” the district statement said.