5-year-old boy wanders off from after-school program
By KABC Staff
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SANTA CLARITA, California (KABC) — A family is outraged after their 5-year-old son walked away unnoticed from an after-school program in Valencia and was later found alone near a McDonald’s a mile away from campus.
Natalie Epstein can’t stop thinking of the worst-case scenario that could have been.
“I feel like I wasn’t there to protect him,” she told Eyewitness News Wednesday.
Brett and Natalie Epstein assumed their 5-year-old son, Oliver, was safe in his after-school program at North Park Elementary in Valencia.
Around 3:30 p.m. on Nov. 4, Brett says he got a call from their panicked nanny. He found out his son had wandered off to a McDonald’s on McBean Parkway.
While the nanny went to go get Oliver, Brett called his wife.
When Natalie called the after-school program to check on Oliver’s whereabouts, she was told Oliver was still at the program.
“The after-care woman had seen him at some point during the day, I’m assuming, proceeds to tell my wife that he was there when in fact he was almost a mile and a half on a corner of a busy street, unaccounted for, unsupervised, with his backpack, alone,” Brett said.
Oliver had slipped away, unnoticed, and wandered more than a mile along a six-lane parkway.
Saugus Union School District Superintendent Colleen Hawkins told Eyewitness News the school district launched an investigation immediately.
“Based on what we learned from this incident, appropriate corrective action has been taken including but not limited to improvements in student supervision protocols and in securing facilities,” Hawkins’ statement said in part.
The Epsteins say Oliver still attends North Park Elementary, but he’ll stop going to the after-care program. The parents say they believe someone from the program should be fired and they’re not ruling out the possibility of taking legal action.
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