JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A Jacksonville mom said her special needs daughter wandered off at Ribault High School and was unaccounted for last week for nearly an hour.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very scary because just those split seconds anything can happen,\u201d said parent Taronya Freeman.<\/p>\n
Freeman said her daughter has Down syndrome and is non-verbal. Since the first day of school, she has expressed concerns to the principal and other staff members to make sure they are aware.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey know at all times that she requires assistance,\u201d Freeman said. \u201cShe does require redirections and reiterations because of the severity her disability.\u201d<\/p>\n
The district said school leaders met with Freeman, reviewed surveillance footage together, and confirmed that the child was on campus, though not in class, between 7:18 and 8:06 a.m.<\/p>\n
Freeman said surveillance video, which Action News Jax requested but did not receive, paints a clearer picture of what unfolded.<\/p>\n
The district said the child entered the building, went to the cafeteria area, sat outside the cafeteria, and then entered the staff parking lot before being located by two security guards and escorted to class.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <\/b><\/a><\/p>\n \u201cShe could have wandered and walked into the street,\u201d Freeman said. \u201cThere are so many things could have happened.\u201d<\/p>\n The school\u2019s safety protocols require that students with special needs who arrive after 7:10 a.m. be escorted inside by their guardian. In this case, the district said the child was dropped off but not escorted into the building.<\/p>\n However, Freeman said she made contact with an employee.<\/p>\n \u201cI made contact with her,\u201d Freeman added. \u201cI watched my daughter go halfway. I thought my daughter had entered the school.\u201d<\/p>\n Freeman said she wants to see changes at Ribault High so she never has to worry if her daughter is in danger.<\/p>\n \u201cI am just hoping for them to do some kind of true corrective action,\u201d Freeman said. \u201cTake this as a wakeup call. It\u2019s not for me to bash but I\u2019m going to advocate for my daughter.\u201d<\/p>\n The district said student safety, especially for children with special needs, is their highest priority. They also apologized to the parent for the delay in notification.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A Jacksonville mom said her special needs daughter wandered off at Ribault High School and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":230561,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[12189,13030,13822,13826,5229,13816,124342,3188,723,54304,44473,11561,13819,7310,425,50,124346,124341,64495,124343,28496,124344,124345,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-230560","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-action_news","9":"tag-action_news_jacks","10":"tag-alexis","11":"tag-alexis_clevinger","12":"tag-america","13":"tag-ben_becker","14":"tag-duval_county_public_school","15":"tag-fl","16":"tag-florida","17":"tag-freeman","18":"tag-hole","19":"tag-jack","20":"tag-jackson","21":"tag-jacksonville","22":"tag-local","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-rieboldt_high","25":"tag-rieboldt_high_school","26":"tag-tania","27":"tag-tanika_ben","28":"tag-tanika_hughes","29":"tag-taranya_freeman","30":"tag-tarranya","31":"tag-united-states","32":"tag-united-states-of-america","33":"tag-unitedstates","34":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","35":"tag-us","36":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115212288395158655","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}