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163rd street with smoke.School officials evacuated nearly 650 students within two minutes and Supt John Bannes ordered classes dismissed at approximately 10 a m. after electrical power was lost at the school.PUBLIC WORKS crews laboring in the area severed an electrical cable that put the school’s three-phased electrical system out of whack at about 9 a.m., Bannes said.But despite the fact that, according to Fire Chief Robert Bettenhausen, the “fast but orderly” evacuation went off without a hitch, some parents are angry and concerned that the emergency “telephone tree” plan to inform them of an early dismissal fell short of expectations.Therefore some parents, or those designated to fill in for working parents, were not informed of the early dismissal and as many as 20 students — some as young as six years old — were left to fend for themselves after busses dropped them at their usual stops.One child, Keith Schultz, a first grader, was found wandering on his street in the Cherry Hills subdivision by a neighbor“THANK GOD Keith had the sense to keep trying at homes of people we know,” said his father, Kevin Schultz. “Who knows what could have happened to him if our neighbor hadn't noticed him.Both of Keith’s parents work But they have made arrangements with a neighbor to watch the boy for 15 minutes before and after school until one of them can pick him up. That neighbor was not home Wednesday. She had no idea an emergency dismissal had been ordered, Schultz said.Six-year-old Keith was on his own.“Here we provide for his safety and the school just turns (him) loose,” Schultz saidWITH ALL of the recent publicity about child abductions and molestation the fact his child was left unsupervised did not sit easy with Schultz or his wife, Carol.“Keith was a little frightened and more than a little confused, Schultz said “He was going door-to-door andwatch over them until the school is absolutely certain they will be provided for when released0 Schultz wonderedACCORDING TO Schultz, his son wasn’t the only one to experience that feeling of being abandoned“Some of the older kids, fifth and sixth graders with house keys, were watching over others until parents arrived home, very surprised to find a house full of childrenOne family in the Tanbark subdivision arrived home to find nine children sheltered in their home, he said In a rather heated telephone exchange between Schultz and Bannes, Schultz said the superintendent admitted he “blew it.Bannes in a conversation with The Star Thursday didn’t use that exact terminology but agreed that Schultz and his wife had a good point.“I WONT argue about it,” he said. “We made some mistakes, but we’ll learn from them and this won’t happen again.Mentioning hindsight, Bannes explained that when an emergency dismissal occurrs there is a set policy that is followed “Our timing was way off and we had a breakdown in communications,” he said.District 140 uses Parent Teacher organization (PTO) women, called “room mothers, to administer the first phase of the emergency telephone treeEach room mother has a list of parents she is to telephone They go through the list and when it is completed they get back in touch with school officials and tell them which parents they were unable to reachThen, using another list, the school staff attempts to reach parents with special “emergency numbers Emergency numbers for relatives, friends or neighbors, or work numbers, are kept at schoolThe call-backs from room mothers went unnoticed Wednesday morning“Without power the telephone lights weren’t blinking and we missed a lot of those calls, Bannes said.Administrators will meet tomorrow night to discuss the situation and work out a policy for the future
Newspaper Details
Tinley Park Star
Tinley Park, Illinois, US
Sun, Apr 15, 1984
Page 2
Full Page
Clipped by
Boyd C.
KY, USA 05 Aug 2019
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