A mother says she found out her Kindergarten-aged son's school marked him absent when she arrived to pick him up after school. The problem: She had dropped him off at the school herself that morning and watched him walk into the building.
TikToker Yessii (@thatsyessiii) shared a clip of her crying in the office of her son's school. A worker asks her who she is picking up and tells her that her son was absent.
"That is unacceptable," Yessii says, panicking. On-screen text reads, "POV: When I drop off my Kindergartener @ school 7:50 & I go to pick him up @ 1 just to get told my child was absent (in other words LOST)."
Her video has over 3.2 million views.
How did the school respond to losing the child?
Yessii shares more details in a follow-up video that has over 17 million views. She says that when she arrived to pick up her son, she didn't see him with his teacher and class.
Yessii says she alerted the school and asked to be let in to look for her son. But, she adds, someone had to approve her entry. She explains the school policy is that no parents can enter without prior permission, and parents aren't allowed to walk their children to the classroom in the mornings.
When she reached the office, she says a woman started calling all the Kindergarten teachers, but none of them had seen her son.
"They should already have a security person running around looking for my child," Yessii says. "I did not see that energy at all."
Yessii says she decided to take matters into her own hands and ran up and down the hallways calling her son's name.
"I'm thinking, 'What if he left the school?' I was thinking the worst," Yessii says.
Where was her son?
Yessii says she couldn't find her son in the school, so she ran outside to the playground, where she saw a staff member supervising a group of children playing.
"I see a little kid coming to me bawling his eyes out," she says. "I was like, 'What are you doing here?' I just grabbed my baby."
In a third video, Yessii shares a clip of her looking for her son in the school. In the end, her son runs up to her, crying. On-screen text reads, "My poor baby was so confused. He was having P.E. with a first-grade class. Mind you, he's supposed to be up in the front for pick up @ 1 with the rest of the kindergarten class."
Viewers are just as outraged
In the comments section, viewers were outraged by the school's apparent negligence.
"Get the police involved. You need access to the cameras in the building. Notify the superintendent also. I'm so sorry that happened," one suggested.
"Where was he for 5 hours!? And for them to just be like… I would have been on the phone with 911 right away," another said.
"The school didn’t call you to alert you that your son was marked absent. That’s insane. I hope he’s OK this is so scary," a third added. Yessii responded that the school didn't call her. However, she added that she received an email at 11:22am—hours after she dropped off her son.
"I don’t check my emails frequently, but now I will," she wrote.
In a fourth video, Yessii says that she can't speak further about the issue, but notes that her son will not be returning to the school.
"If I get the OK to speak about this situation more in the future, I'd be happy to do that," Yessii says.
The Daily Dot reached out to Yessii via Instagram and TikTok direct message.
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