MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The Memphis-Shelby County School Board is set to discuss the Head Start program and yet another deficiency, after a 4-year-old student walked out of an elementary school last month.
A report sent to MSCS in May details an unnerving incident at Keystone Elementary School involving a preschooler.
The report, conducted by the Office of Head Start, says three substitute teachers were watching the class that day.
When they became distracted, the report states, a 4-year-old left the line and ran down the hallway, then eventually exited the school’s rear double doors, proceeded to walk down the sidewalk, and off of campus property.
Community members found the child running along a street and took the child to their home, where they then uploaded a social media post to locate the child’s parents.
School staff saw the post and sent school security to retrieve the child. The child’s parents were then notified.
Head Start staff told the school board last week that supervision and safety protocols have been reviewed.
They also said they did a SWOT analysis with the Keystone team to review what those protocols were.
This deficiency is on top of several more health and safety deficiencies found last year in two different monitoring reports.
The latest report notes that, “Despite extensions of time to develop corrective action efforts for a year, the grant recipient continued to have child health and safety incidents throughout its current project period.”
MSCS has to compete to secure the Head Start grant again. It’s unclear who else has applied.
The federally funded program is designed to prepare low-income children from birth to age 5 to succeed in school and life.
Three thousand two hundred children are enrolled in Shelby County.
This Tuesday, the topic is set to come up again at the school board business meeting.
A PowerPoint presentation attached to the agenda details the district’s corrective actions, like meeting with all building engineers, implementing a school-wide supervision plan, and reinforcing expectations for substitute teachers and assistants.
It emphasized the “If you see something, say something” protocol for all building staff.
We reached out to the school district to find out if they had more information about the corrective action plan, and told them they had until 4 p.m. Friday to respond.
They noted that they received our email.