By Tracy Ouellette
SLN Staff
A 5-year-old boy walked out of Little Prairie Primary School unattended the morning of Nov. 26 and was found near East Troy Middle School about 17 minutes later.
According to Village of East Troy Police Chief Jeremy Swendrowski, security footage showed the 4K student leaving Little Prairie at about 9:45 a.m. and being taken into the middle school at about 10:02 a.m. The middle school is about .7 miles from the primary school.
“He was brought inside and a blanket was put on him right away, then the principal at Little Prairie was contacted and she came and got him and brought him back to school,” Swendrowski said.
According to the police report, officials at Little Prairie had just completed searching the school for the missing child and were about to call the police department as per procedure, when the middle school principal called them to let them know they had the boy.
According to an on-camera interview with Fox 6 News in Milwaukee, the child’s mother, Betty Lysaght, said she was informed by the school of the incident and when she arrived she had to take her son to the emergency room.
In the interview she said she was told her son went missing and was shocked at the school’s response.
“My son went missing?” she said in the interview. “What the heck is going on, man? Are you kidding me?”
Lysaght said the school couldn’t tell her how long the boy had been missing but that he was found in front of the middle school with no jacket on.”
Temperatures in East Troy the morning of Nov. 26 were in the mid 20s.
“My 5 year old’s delirious but did not seek medical attention? That’s horrible,” Lysaght told Fox 6.
The police report states that Lysaght didn’t take her son for treatment immediately, but first took the boy home and fed him lunch. Swendrowski spoke to Lysaght at her home at this time because she asked him to stop by because of her concerns about what had happened, according to the police report.
Lysaght told Swendrowski she didn’t understand how her son could just walk out of school and, according to the report. Swendrowski and the officer with him tried to explain to Lysaght that the doors to the school can’t be internally locked and that her son had asked to use the bathroom and then left. The report states the officers talked to the boy about listening to his teacher and telling the teacher where he is going.
Attempts to contact Lysaght were unsuccessful as of press time.
Officials from the East Troy Community School District did not answer questions about the incident, instead releasing the following statement:
“Yesterday morning, a Little Prairie Primary student asked to use the restroom. After a few minutes, the classroom teacher checked on the student and realized that the student was not in the bathroom. The teacher immediately notified the building principal, who enacted safety procedures, per district protocol.
During the initial steps of this protocol, the elementary school principal was informed that a middle school staff member had seen the student in question outside the building. The child was quickly brought into the middle school. It was later confirmed that the student had left the elementary building via a side door in an effort to go home.
The safety of our students is the most important priority of the East Troy Community School District. We will continue to utilize our established protocols and procedures to ensure a safe environment for each of our students.”
Recent security incidents at East Troy High School, including the bomb squad being called in a Oct. 29 when a student allegedly brought a container with gasoline and Styrofoam in it and a student who allegedly made a threat to “shoot up the school” on Nov. 6, have put the School District’s security measures in the spotlight recently and brought several parents/residents to the Nov. 12 School Board meeting with concerns and requests for metal detectors at the high school.
