Rochester City School District officials say “several teachers” at School 12 have been placed on administrative leave…after three teachers marked Trevyan Rowe “present’ the day he wandered away from school and drowned in the Genesee River.
And Rochester School Board President Van White says there’s worse to report: the evidence shows somebody tried to hack into those records after Trevyan was found to be missing and alter them to mark him “absent.” White said at a news conference he was ashamed to announce that fact, and he says the district simply failed the 14-year-old autistic student.
School Superintendent Barbara Deane-Williams says there were five adults greeting children as they got off their buses Thursday Morning at School #12…but none of them noticed Trevyan Rowe walking away instead of entering the school. And Deane-Williams says there’s a reason nobody was assigned to walk Trevyan into the school: the district’s records did not list him as autistic. Deane-Williams says they’re investigating that failure as well.
The failure to catch his absence explains why Trevyan’s mother didn’t get an automated call that her sonwas absent. She didn’t learn anything was wrong until he failed to return home on his evening bus.
Although no robocall was made, the superintendent says it would have come too late to make a difference. Absence calls are made starting at 11:00 a.m. Deane-Williams says that system has to change. She’s proposing the school board hire an attendance clerk for each school building to take a complete report at the start of the school day and notify parents at once if students aren’t in school.
Both Deane-Williams and White expressed their sorrow and apologies on behalf of the district. That led a community activist in the audience to call for both officials to resign.