Student check-out incident raises safety concerns

BRUNSWICK COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — Questions remain tonight after a middle school student was reported missing in Leland. Her grandmother came to get her out of school but the girl’s father didn’t know. The school system said a miscommunication and deviation of protocol created the perfect storm. 

“At all schools in Brunswick County safety is our top priority for our students,” said spokeswoman Jessica Swencki. “When parents or guardians come to check their students out we have a very clear process.”

The middle schooler, Elisha Jones, was found safe. But the situation raises some serious concerns about student safety at school.

“Parents must come in, they must show identification, and they use what is called our Identi-kid System to log themselves into the system and to request the child that they are checking out,” said Swencki.

She said what happened yesterday was an anomaly due to another event going on at the school at the same time and that typical sign out procedure was changed to help speed up the checking out process.

“When situations like this occur we have to monitor our own process. We have to make sure that we are to the letter following our procedures it doesn’t matter if there’s a special event happening on our campus or not,” Swencki said.

She adds no action has been taken against anyone involved in the process from the school and said none will be.