Plymouth school officials say they have increased staff monitoring after a kindergartner was inadvertently allowed to walk away from a before-school program at Nathaniel Morton Elementary School earlier this month.
The five-year-old boy apparently left to walk home and was missing approximately six minutes before an alert bus driver spotted the child walking on South Street — after he crossed the busy Sandwich Street — and picked him up, according to records.
School officials were not aware the boy was missing until the bus driver returned him to school officials at 9:09 a.m. on Jan. 7, about 16 minutes after videotape later revealed he left school grounds on Lincoln Street.
The incident prompted questions from parents, and an internal investigation by the schools has prompted changes in how children are monitored before and after school, Superintendent Chris Campbell told the Independent in an email response to questions.
“Incidents of this nature are extraordinarily rare, and, in my 18 years in Plymouth, this was the first time the school has experienced a situation where a student left NMES in this manner,” he said.
An incident report from the schools shows a 5-year-old girl temporarily went missing from the school a year ago on Jan. 16, 2025, when she walked through the parking lot behind the building and hid between cars until the doors closed. The child eventually attracted the attention of a parent, who walked her into the building, the report said.
In the most recent incident, the student’s aunt was upset about how school officials remained unaware her nephew was missing for critical minutes.
“They didn’t even know he was ever in the building,” Shannon Guest said in an interview.
The student had taken part in the YMCA before-school program at Nathaniel Morton. The program, operated by the Old Colony YMCA, runs from 7 a.m. until 8:50 a.m., shortly before the school day begins at 9:05 a.m.
At about 8:55 a.m., the student was walked over from the gym, where the YMCA program was being conducted, to the cafeteria for breakfast, according to an incident report from the Plymouth Public Schools.
Guest said she could see on video shared by the school that her nephew walked near the front of the line of students being escorted into the cafeteria and got out of line and walked out the door.
“There’s a door to the left of the line where they go in to grab their breakfast and he went right past staff right out that door,” Guest said.
Her nephew wasn’t wearing a jacket when a crossing guard helped him across Lincoln Street as he was leaving, Guest said.
In a Jan. 12 email to parents, principal Krissy Chase said the student was attempting to walk home and credited the bus driver for quick thinking. The school is close to the intersection of the heavily traveled Sandwich Street (Route 3A), and South Street.
“Her actions that morning made a critical difference,” Chase said in her email.
At 9:09 a.m. – 16 minutes after the boy walked away — the bus driver pulled up to the school with the student and handed him off to school staff, according to the schools’ incident report.
In her email to parents, Chase said her office is now sharing attendance information with the YMCA and students have been reminded they should never leave the building without an adult.
Outside the school on a recent frigid afternoon, a long line of parents waited for their children. Only one agreed to comment.
“I really wasn’t surprised,” said Michaela Jones, whose six-year-old son takes part in the YMCA program at the school. “It’s a lot of young children and a lot of elderly people that work in the programs.”
But Jones said she thought someone would have seen the student sooner, as many teachers are lined up in front of the school when students arrive in the morning, and there are three crossing guards between the school and Sandwich Street.
“Hopefully, nothing like that will happen again,” she said.
Fred Thys can be reached at fred@plymouthindependent.org.