On February 17, a special needs boy named Richard Harley went missing at Dundee Middle School, District 300, located in Chicago. The 6th-grade boy was mistakenly grouped in with anti-ICE protesters during a walkout, even though he had nothing to do with their ideology, and became lost. He was essentially abandoned on a busy highway and could have gotten into an accident.
He had no idea why his peers went outside and either instinctively followed or was joining them out of curiosity to discover what they were doing outside of school grounds.
Grimly, perhaps he disappeared because he felt he needed to stay with his group (he may have previously had ingrained rules that he needed to stay with his group or follow “the buddy system”), or, alternatively, because he simply wanted to hang out with his friends.
The disloyal students clearly broke a rule since they themselves went too far (walking the exact opposite direction out of the "safe zone" the district arranged for them to protest in) and left Harley to fend for himself. Worried Harley called his mom while in the middle of the highway to help him find his way home. Harley waited for her to pick him up.
The 11-year-old boy was returned home safely (yet laced with anxiety) and reunited with his mom. He is, unfortunately, too scared to go back to school and anxious about being left behind on the road again. His mom wishes the school district knew how scared he was; she is planning to sue them. She is planning to either home school him or transfer him to a new district.
The school's email response sounds like cagey, corporate, non-committal word salad; they arguably do not care that much about students being safe at school. "Safety was top of mind throughout the district's planning. To ensure a secure environment, the school increased staff presence across the campus and maintained constant communication with local law enforcement before and during the event. ... Some students chose to leave campus without supervision. While student privacy laws prevent us from discussing individual circumstances, District 300 remains committed to ensuring our practices consistently reflect our high standards for student support and safety."
The gaslighting, generic response rationalized the school's actions — their decision to do nothing — using flippant excuses and claims about trying to do a better job keeping tabs on the students. The email apparently blamed Harley for being separated and implied that getting lost was his own fault, when he did not realize that a dangerous highway was where his friends went.
This is not the first time someone with special needs went missing at school. Lots of people with autism and a variety of other special needs have disappeared from school grounds because they were enticed by interesting surroundings or they experienced sensory overload. They didn't have the words to make their needs known, and the teachers could not keep up with them. Harley's IEP did not mean anything. The IEP does not stop this from happening.
Public school now has a reputation as a terrible place for special needs children.
Editor’s Note: With President Trump back in the White House, the state of our Union is strong once again.
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