Teachers suspended after toddlers wander into traffic

PHOENIX – Seven toddlers, some possibly as young as 18 months, wandered away from a Gilbert preschool and into traffic Friday morning, prompting motorists to hit their brakes and round them up.

Samantha Crouch told The Arizona Republic she was driving northbound on Val Vista Drive when she noticed cars stopping and honking their horns.

When she looked out her window, she noticed two toddlers on the street. One of them was using a yellow push toy, she said.

The children had escaped out a gate at the Little Sunshine’s Playhouse & Preschool in Gilbert.

Crouch posted on a Gilbert- based Facebook group that she came “very, very close” to hitting the two toddlers, whom she estimated were about 18 months old.

There also was a group of children on the sidewalk but “absolutely no adult outside at the time,” she said.

She and two other drivers ushered the children to safety.

When Crouch spoke to a staff member, she said, they told her that they didn’t know the children were missing and that the campus’s gate latch is “confusing.”

“They didn’t even know the kids were gone until I pounded on the lobby door screaming,” she wrote.

Gilbert Police spokesman Sgt. Mark Marino said police were investigating the incident, which happened at around 9: 45 a. m. and was the result of a “structural failure” with the school’s gate.

He said the gate was out of the view of the adults watching that particular outdoor play area. Two of the children made their way to a bike lane in the street, Marino said.

In an email to The Republic on Friday, the school said the situation was “immediately” brought to staff attention and no children were injured.

“As soon as we learned of the incident, we immediately contacted the parents of the students involved, suspended the teachers pending a full investigation, and self- reported to the state of Arizona childcare licensing,” the email said.

The school said in an email to parents Friday that it completed a perimeter check of the school, including the fence and gate, which ultimately led them to agree with the Gilbert Police Department’s conclusion that the gate had failed. The issue has since been fixed, and the gate and its double latch system are working correctly, the school added.

Additionally, the school told parents it bought and will install a gate alarm system that gives off “a loud audible alarm” when the gate is opened. Children will not be allowed on the playground until the alarm is installed, the school said.

No charges had been filed against the preschool as of Friday afternoon.