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The mother of a 6-year-old girl with special needs wants answers after her daughter was found wandering on a busy road in Houston, Texas. According to FOX 26, Serenity Polk ended up wandering away from Lantrip Elementary School last Thursday (September 28).
Serenity, who is deaf, was released from school as a walker instead of a car rider. By the time her mother, Mercedes Polk, arrived to pick her up, the girl wasn't there.
"The teachers kept giving me excuses that they were looking for her within the school," Polk told reporters. "They were saying she might be at the playground. She might be in the bathroom, but it was over an hour. So, I started freaking out even more."
Polk said Serenity was found a mile away from the school, walking on a busy I-45 feeder road in Cullen. A homeless man holding a sign on the side of the road found the girl screaming and crying and contacted the school.
"The school went to go get her. She wouldn't get in the car with them. So, the school contacted the police. She wouldn't get in the car with the police, and that's when they called me," Polk said. "All that time I thought my daughter was in the school building."
The mother is now frustrated with the Houston Independent School District considering the students wear badges to indicate which line they were supposed to be in. Car riders wear white badges, while walkers don red ones, according to Polk.
"My fears are this could happen to another child," she said. "My child could have died."
School officials claim a substitute teacher placed Serenity in the wrong line, according to the Houston Police Department. Reporters reached out to the school district for comment, but they have yet to respond.
CPS confirmed to FOX 26 that they're investigating the incident.
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