Wednesday was supposed to be an uneventful first day of kindergarten for 5-year-old Jack Griffith, but the morning started with being kicked off the school bus, briefly running away from home and his parents calling the police.
The bus pulled up to his family's Mesa home just before 7:45 a.m., according to Jack's mother, 33-year-old Beth Griffith.
"He was already super emotionally torn up about going on the bus and so emotional about going to school," she said. "He told me he was scared in his tummy, and we talked about what being nervous means."
Their neighbor, 36-year-old Jessica Hallsted, was out for a walk when she saw Griffith and her husband trying to get Jack on the bus.
She said Jack seemed "so scared and obviously anxious," but that he seemed better once Griffith coaxed him and helped him up the steps. Griffith even described her son as ultimately feeling "happy and excited" about going to school for the first time.
Hallsted turned the corner and didn't see what happened next.
The bus driver asked where Jack's mask was, saying that wearing one was mandatory to ride the bus. Troy Griffith, 36, said he'd called the district's transportation department on Tuesday night and was told by two different people that students with special needs were not required to wear masks.
Both Troy and Beth Griffith tried to explain what they'd been told to the bus driver, who called a district staff member who ultimately said Jack couldn't ride without a mask.
Beth Griffith said she doesn't understand that stance, given that she said there were only three children on the bus and that physical distancing was "100% achievable."
Neighbor Tasha Palmer, 39, was getting things out of her garage with her children when she heard a high-pitched scream coming from the school bus parked nearby.
Palmer is friends with the Griffith family and knows about Jack's autism, so she said she thought the outburst was a result of Jack being nervous about the new experience of riding a bus and leaving home for the day.
She occasionally glanced over at the scene, eventually seeing the trio get off the bus and head back toward their house.
Palmer thought they were going to start over, but was confused when she saw the bus pull away without Jack in tow.
That’s when a difficult day became even worse for the Griffith family.
'Instant terror' as son runs away from home to chase school bus
Beth Griffith said her son was “absolutely devastated” about being kicked off the bus and that her husband had to drive him to school while he was still in “emotional turmoil.”
They heard Jack going into the garage while Troy Griffith put his shoes on and figured he was going to wait in the car, as he frequently does.
They didn’t hear the garage door open and their son slip out.
Beth Griffith estimates it was less than two minutes afterward that they entered the garage and didn’t find their son waiting for them.
“(It was) just instant terror,” she said, adding that her son doesn’t understand safety precautions like looking both ways before crossing the street.
She immediately called police.
Troy Griffith echoed his wife’s concern, saying he was “freaked out” and started running down the street in the direction that the bus was going, thinking Jack may have followed it.
Macy Banner, 14, was driving home with her father when she noticed a little boy, who she would later learn was Jack, playing in a puddle.
“He wasn’t afraid or anything, he was just playing in the water,” she said. “I was like, what’s this little boy doing? I was just concerned, but I wasn’t like, freaking out. I just went over to make sure he was OK and he got home safe.”
At the same time as Banner approached Jack, Troy Griffith had caught up to them, breathing a sigh of relief that his son was unharmed in the few minutes since he’d left.
Mesa Police Department spokesman Detective Nik Rasheta confirmed that police got the call, but said that Jack was found before officers arrived on scene. No report was filed, he said.
Troy Griffith was eventually able to drive Jack to school, and for the time being will have to leave his job in Phoenix in the middle of the work day to retrieve him from school unless it allows Jack to ride the bus and go to school without a mask.
'He just wants to be involved'
Those are the types of things Beth Griffith said most parents don’t have to think about in light of the coronavirus outbreak.
“It’s so upsetting because people keep saying, ‘We’re all in this together,’ they keep saying this is hard for us all, but they don’t understand that we are living in completely different worlds going through this,” she said.
She and her husband worry about the long-term impacts of the incident on their son.
“I’m worried about him ever feeling like he gets to belong,” she said. “... He just wants to be involved, he wants to be included, and now his very first experience with the first day of school, he’s been shown in a very dramatic fashion that no, you don’t get to be like everybody else, you don’t get to be included.”
Troy Griffith also said the lack of continuity among district employees with regards to the mask policy was “frustrating,” and that he hopes his son attending in-person classes works out.
“It would be impossible for him to learn online-only,” he said. “It’s just not going to work. If they’re really serious about this idea that even special ed students need to wear a mask all the time or they can’t be in school under the pretense of saving lives, they’re ruining livelihoods for those who are most vulnerable.”
Beth Griffith said her husband was later contacted by a school staff member who said the bus driver made a mistake and that Jack would be permitted to ride without a mask.
When asked for comment about the incident, however, Mesa Public Schools spokeswoman Heidi Hurst said wearing a mask is required by district policy and that the parent involved "chose to have their child not ride the bus" after the bus driver explained that it was required for transportation on a district vehicle.
The policy Hurst cited states that the superintendent may make an exception for students who are "in need of reasonable accommodations under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act or the Americans with Disabilities Act."
Hurst did not immediately respond to The Arizona Republic's request for further clarification on the matter.
Reach the reporter at bfrank@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8529. Follow her on Twitter @brieannafrank.
Support local journalism. Subscribe to azcentral today.
"bus" - Google News
August 27, 2020 at 11:22PM
https://ift.tt/2YHR33z
Boy with autism kicked off Mesa school bus for not wearing face mask, runs away from home - AZCentral
"bus" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2rp2JL3
https://ift.tt/3aT1Mvb
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Boy with autism kicked off Mesa school bus for not wearing face mask, runs away from home - AZCentral"
Post a Comment