Bean’s School LOST Her
Two Hours in Hell.
Now, I don’t wanna start a whole shit show, but I’m gonna name names because I would want to know how safe my child is. It’s taken me a while to be confident and decide I want to make this publicly known.
That being said, Bean no longer attends this school; however, it did happen during the 2024-2025 school year, so not all that long ago.
It was early morning in late May/Early June; it couldn’t have been much later than 9:30 that morning, for context, my daughter’s bus came at about 8:55, and school started at 9:10 or so.
One of my best friends, my daughter’s Aunt Erin and I were hanging out, and I received a phone call from the school attendance line. My daughter wasn’t at school. Okay, you’ve heard this, and if I hadn’t been there, I’d be with you, I’d be confused too and questioning why it’s a biggie, but we are talking about a JK student at that, one with a fall birthday, one of the youngest in her grade: not a teenager but a child so young she had to be accompanied on and off the bus.
For anyone not from Ontario, Canada, JK or Junior Kindergarten is often a child’s very first year of school; kids go in ranging from 3-4.5.
So why? Just before 10 in the morning, an hour after WE put her on the bus; yes, two adults put her on, watched her get on, watched the doors close behind her. So what happened?
I immediately hung up on the automated call and called the school secretary; her response was almost one of confusion. She proceeded to tell me that a bus was late, but she was sure my daughter was in Gatineau Park with her classmates; oh hell no! For those of you who don’t know, Gatineau Park is not in Ontario; it’s not far, but it is technically in the province of Quebec. I had never authorized her to go on this trip, not anytime they went and not this time.
I immediately cut the secretary off where she was trying to placate me, stating that NO under no circumstances should she be on that trip, and I would like an attempt made to locate her immediately. She calmly said she would look into it and call me back.
So, now this is where other people get frustrated with me. I waited 10, maybe 20 minutes, and when I had not received a call back, I called again, and when I asked the secretary if she had been located, the secretary said, “No, we haven’t gotten around to it,” and I swear to god that sentence has been burned in my brain since. I was livid just thinking what the fuck, you haven’t gotten around to it, but it was finding my very young child, who was missing at a public school in Nepean.
I hung up as she finished her sentence and called the Ottawa Police Non-Emergency Line. Now people wanna be mad, why call the cops, why not go there? Well, you see, I was going to, as I called, I was putting on shoes to walk there, but it’s a 45-minute walk. Which is what I told dispatch when they asked where I could meet them, but we’ll get there.
I called the NON-emergency line for the Ottawa Police Service and told the dispatcher what was happening. I explained I was going to go, but this is her age, and I’m worried. As soon as they heard her age, the Ottawa Police Service chose to transfer me to emergency dispatch, and it was the second dispatcher who said, “No, wait at home. The cops can get to you and the school in ten minutes or less.” What I didn’t realize is that they had already started dispatching officers, two to L’Ecole Charlotte-Lemieux to attempt to locate my daughter and another pair to my house to get her information and picture from me.
Officers arrived at my house, literally as their counterparts reached the school, and you see, once cops arrive, the principal gets involved.
I was later informed by the principal that she had personally escorted my daughter into the school when she sent off the rest of the class on the field trip.
The Principal had known the whole time what class she was in and what teacher she was with. What the principal didn’t know until the cops arrived was that anyone was looking for her. The secretary had not communicated with anyone, had not paged my child to the office, nor did she consider it even a necessity to look.
So, of course, as the Principal saw the police arrive and enter her school, I was told she immediately made contact with them. The officers proceeded to explain the circumstances to the Principal; I was told she was utterly shocked that there was a missing child in her school, and she didn’t know. As this interaction continued, it proceeded the principal verbally confirmed her presence. Blessedly for my sanity, after I had been told so many things, the officers did not just accept the verbal confirmation.
I was extremely thankful to find out from the officers at my home that their counterparts at the school were able to make a visual confirmation of her identity, meaning the principal took them to a place where they could see her and see that she was safely with the class she had been placed with for the day.
Bean never even knew she was missing.
Blessed Be ✨