Beaufort Co. school left 4-year-old alone on playground twice, police report says
A Beaufort County mother who says teachers at Lowcountry Montessori School left her 4-year-old son unattended on the playground twice in October is calling for the dismissal of the school’s administrators who “shrugged” it off and for the school board to further investigate what happened while her child was in their care.
Kylie Wright of Beaufort filed a report Oct. 16 with the Port Royal Police Department after a teacher failed to count students returning from outdoor play and her son was “found by another parent unsupervised on the playground,” according to police.
Wright’s son had also been left unattended on the playground by a different teacher Oct. 7 until he was discovered there alone by another teacher, according to the report.
Lowcountry Montessori School is part of the South Carolina Public Charter School District, and not the Beaufort County School District. The school uses the Montessori Method, in which students choose their own coursework from a range of options and do not receive traditional grades. Classrooms often span three grade levels, and teachers stay with a group of students for several years.
The school, which had 365 students in 2018-19, costs $5,665 annually in tuition for preschool students and has a waiting list each year. Attendance is free for kindergarten through 12th-grade students.
When asked Friday for comment, director of the school Amy Horn, responded by email Monday saying she was unavailable to speak with a reporter from The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette because of her schedule. Horn requested that questions be submitted in writing, something the newspapers only do to confirm minor matters of fact and not for conversations with those in positions of authority. When told this, Horn asked for the newspapers to leave the questions on her voicemail, which the newspapers declined to do.
An hour later, Horn emailed the papers, “Due to the ongoing investigation of the complaint, we are unable to publicly comment at this time.”
Sara Lemstrom, chairperson of the school’s board of directors, confirmed Monday the board is “currently investigating the complaint brought by Ms. Kylie Wright.”
She declined to comment further on the case.
Port Royal Police Officer Clint McKinney went to the school Oct. 16 to speak with Horn.
“Amy informed me that the teaching staff will be informed and the teachers involved will be handled administratively. Amy apologized to Kylie and acknowledge (sic) the conduct of the teachers was not to be tolerated,” he wrote in the report.
Major Ron Wekenmann confirmed Monday that the police department has no ongoing investigations into the school.
Wright said she withdrew her son from the school Oct. 18, and has received a refund of $340 in tuition, a little more than half of the school’s $566.50 monthly cost of daycare attendance.
“I would like to be fully reimbursed for my child’s time at this school, because it seems as though he was never actually watched,” Wright wrote in an Oct. 21 email to Lemstrom.
Wright also told Lemstrom she wants school administrators Horn, Matt Zappia and Sarah Fox fired, a review of every day that her son attended the school and time stamps for incidents when he was left unattended.
‘This was more than a split second’
Wright said she thought her child had “quite the imagination” when he came home Oct. 7 and told her he had been left behind on the playground after hiding from his class.
“He said he waited and a man came and took him to class,” she wrote to Lemstrom.
Her son’s teacher confirmed the 4-year-old’s story and said she “didn’t notice” he was missing until another teacher found him and brought him to class, Wright wrote.
The next day, Wright went to the school to discuss the incident with Horn.
“Amy Horn said she was unaware of the incident and said that surely there was no way he was left alone,” Wright wrote to board members. “Amy called (the teacher) into the office and (she) again confirmed that Wyatt was left alone and that she never did a head count. Amy shrugged it off and no action was taken.”
Wright said she asked to review video footage of the incident on Oct. 11 with Horn and Zapata, the school’s technology and facilities administrator. The two told her that her son had been left unattended for three minutes and 39 seconds.
“I was also told that if I wanted to view the video I would have to contact their attorneys,” Wright said.
On Oct. 15, Wright told Horn and Zapata that she was withdrawing her son from the school on the 18th, and that she was requesting a refund for the remainder of her prepaid daycare tuition. Horn denied her request, she said, citing a school policy that required 30 days’ notice before a student withdrew.
On Oct. 16, the same day Wright’s son was left unattended a second time, Horn walked back that decision and decided to refund $340, according to Wright.
Wright said she is unsure of how long her son was left alone on the 16th, but believes it was about 10 minutes: her friend at the school called her at 11:55 a.m. to tell her that she saw the 4-year-old outside, and his class’ outdoor period had ended at 11:45 a.m.
Since withdrawing her son, Wright has continued to attend the school’s board meetings, raising questions about his treatment and the school’s leadership. She says she will continue to do so.
“It is always the story you hear, the parent takes their eyes off their child for a split second and their biggest nightmare happened,” Wright told the school’s board at their Nov. 7 meeting. “But this was more than a split second, this was minutes.”