MIA

I let a tearful second grader call home to get picked up. Her dad said he'd be on his way, so I sent her to her classroom to get her belongings. Soon after, the secretary asked me if the student went back to class, and I told her that I'd asked her to go get her backpack but she would be back soon...Another few minutes later, a classmate of the ill student came to my office to tell me the student had never come back to pick up her things. 

I brought the classmate to the front office where she reported, loudly and in front of the ill student's father, that the student was missing...Oh, crap. The secretary, the principal, and I quickly checked all bathrooms in the school, and her classroom again, and still we couldn't find her. The secretary used the PA system to ask the student to come to the office, and she came in through a side hallway. Apparently she went to her normal after school pick-up spot to wait for her dad. 

Sheesh, though. "Sorry we lost your daughter" is not exactly a statement you want to make to any parent, particularly in the neighborhood of this school.