The Toronto District School Board is apologizing to a mother after her son was taken by a stranger.
The woman got a robocall on Tuesday afternoon saying her six-year-old son wasn't in class.
She ran to Walter Perry Junior Public School in Scarborough and was told a driver with the Children's Aid Society showed up, asked for a boy by only using a first name, staff brought her son to the office and he was signed out.
"It's very clear this is a horrible case of mistaken identity. It should never have happened. Our superintendent and principal have reached out to the mom in this case to, well obviously apologize profusely, to offer any support that we can if there's anything they need, make sure they have a good contact person if they have any questions to help them through this. Right now, we're trying to follow up to find exactly what happened. You know, what information was shared, when, who it was shared with, the chronology of everything to try and nail down what went wrong," explains the TDSB's Ryan Bird.
He says typically there is an exchange of information. "It might be the CAS phoning ahead to the school to say 'we're on our way to pick up X student' and they have the student ready when they arrive and that kind of thing. What we're trying to figure out in this case is, was that exchange of information happening on Tuesday? Did it happen? What information was given? Are they giving full names when they come in? What confirmations were done at the time?"
The CAS agrees this is an "unfortunate" case of mistaken identity and completely understands why the mother involved would be angry.
It has offered the following timeline of events:
Our volunteer driver, all of whom undergo rigorous police and personal background checks, followed the standard procedure for this type of child pickup.
* She called the school earlier in the morning to confirm pick-up, giving the school both the first and last name of the child.
* upon arrival at the school she asked for the child at the school office.
* a child was delivered to her, she signed the child out.
* proceeded to the access visit .
* handed the child over to the staff at the access visit and left.
It appears that the wrong child with a similar name was presented to our driver at the school. At the access visit location our staff soon recognized that the child brought to the visit was the wrong child. The worker then called the school and returned the child to that location. The child was never in any danger nor distress, and was according the driver "very pleasant and a happy little boy."
The boy who was meant to be picked up missed his supervised visit with his parent/caregiver so another one has been rescheduled for the weekend.
A meeting is being held today between CAS and its drivers to go over proper procedure and discuss if any changes need to be made.