Houston ISD 6-year-old special needs student, found roaming on I-45 feeder after school
HOUSTON - A Houston mom wants answers after her 6-year-old daughter, who has special needs, ended up in the wrong line after school at a Houston Independent School District elementary, and the first-grader was found walking on the I-45 feeder road near Cullen in Southeast Houston.
The busy strip of road was certainly no place for a 6-year-old to walk alone.
Mercedes Polk says it was actually a homeless man who realized it wasn't right when he saw the little girl by herself. So, he called the name of the school on the 6-year-old's t-shirt, Lantrip Elementary School.
Little Serenity Polk, who's deaf in both ears was crying, screaming, and hysterical by the time her mom was notified.
It started Thursday when Mercedes Polk arrived at HISD's Lantrip Elementary to pick up her daughter Serenity, but the 6-year-old wasn't there.
"The teachers kept giving me excuses that they were looking for her within the school. (They were telling you she was still in the building?) Yes, they were saying she might be at the playground. She might be in the bathroom, but it was over an hour. So I started freaking out even more," the distressed mom explains.
Turns out at dismissal time on Thursday, Polk says her daughter, who is a car rider was mistakenly released from school as a walker.
"The walkers have a red badge. The car riders have white badges," Polk explains.
"So why would you put a child who has the actual card that is a car rider in the walker line?" asks Dr. Candice Matthews with New Black Panther Nation.
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"I was thinking I just lost my husband, now I'm about to lose my child. I didn't know if she was raped, murdered, kidnapped, hit by a car," Polk adds.
Thankfully, none of those things happened.
Polk says her 6-year-old as it turns out was a mile away from the school walking on the busy I-45 feeder road.
"A homeless man that holds the sign right there on Cullen and I-45 found my daughter. He contacted the school. The school went to go get her. She wouldn't get in the car with them. So the school contacted the police. She wouldn't get in the car with the police and that's when they called me. All that time I thought my daughter was in the school building," says Polk.
"It could have been something catastrophic that could have happened to this child on the feeder road of I-45 or the expressway of I-45. This child could have lost her life," says Dr. Matthews.
The Houston Police Department says school officials tell them a substitute teacher placed Serenity in the wrong line.
Polk says she feels the district isn't taking this seriously. "My fears are this could happen to another child. My child could have died," says Polk.
CPS confirms the agency is investigating. As of when this was written, HISD has not yet responded to FOX 26 regarding this.