A mother is demanding action after her six year old daughter was left behind during a school trip for two hours, while her classmates travelled 26 miles back to school. Six year old Cianni Allen was found wandering alone in the pumpkin patch at Tuttle Orchards in Greenfield, Indiana, as teachers and fellow students boarded a bus back to school.
Her mother, Dearra, 33, was alerted when she received a panicked call from staff at Christel House Academy West. She rushed to the school while a teacher went to retrieve Cianni, who feared she would never see her parents again.
Despite the school’s apologies, Dearra insists they are not enough, saying: “They’re trying to keep me quiet with all these apologies, but I don’t care about that. You lost my child. I’m not letting this go. I’ve contacted four lawyers, and I’m pushing this out to the press. This needs to be heard. Teachers aren’t doing proper head counts, and these chaperones – parents who already have their own biases – are responsible for our kids. This is a six-year-old. Anything could have happened to her, and I’m going to make sure people know that.”
Her mum says the rest of the class left the orchard at 2pm and arrived back at the school at 2.45pm. They realised Cianni was missing when staff from the patch called the school, according to her family. Cianni’s teachers immediately contacted her emergency contact – her grandmother. In a state of panic, Dearra, a mother of two other children, rushed to the school where she was reunited with Cianni at 4.30pm, reports The Mirror US.
“We were sitting there, trying to understand how this could happen,” she recalls. The teacher was present, claiming, ‘I did a head count, and everyone was accounted for. I didn’t see Cianni or her pumpkin, so I thought she was already on the bus. How do you leave an entire child behind and not realise it?”
Dearra shares that her daughter was understandably upset after the incident. “Cianni was by herself for almost two hours. She knows about stranger danger. We had just gone over what to do if a stranger approaches, and then this happens. I thought they turned right back around to get her, but she was sitting there alone for two hours. Anything could have happened to her. Someone could have abducted her. She had to talk to strangers while she waited for someone to come back for her.”
Cianni feels “sad” about the incident, saying: “”When I was by myself, I said, ‘Where’s my teacher? And I looked in the apple orchard and the pumpkin orchard. And this lady, she said, “What’s wrong? ‘ And I said, ‘My school is missing.’ And then they took me into their office and called the school.”
When asked if she thought she would see her parents again, Cianni responded: “No.” Upon being reunited with her daughter, Dearra said she “just hugged her and cried.” She added: “I couldn’t believe this happened,” and revealed that Cianni’s father was livid. He stated: “I was supposed to meet with the principal, but I couldn’t even focus. I was too busy holding my daughter.”
Christel House Academy West has yet to respond to a request for comment.
