When Should A School Notify Parents About Unplanned Absence?

A parent's worst nightmare; to have a child simply disappear. In Oregon City, Oregon, a sixteen year old girl ran away from home, instead of showing up for school one morning, and her parents were not notified of this until after 5:00 PM that day. Luckily, she was found, and now there is a local discussion in Oregon about the reporting of missing children when it concerns school. The awareness that stranger abductions culminating in murder usually feature the murder taking place within the first three hours of the abduction is key, here. Waiting until after 5:00 PM to file a report about a child who went missing hours earlier is an invitation to tragedy.

In 2011, Oregon passed a law, largely because seven year old Kyron Horman disappeared from school in 2010, that requires schools to notify parents when a child has an unplanned absence from school. The school board in the above case has, so far dodged questions from the public about whether 5:00 PM was too late to notify parents. A step in the right direction, however; is that the general public has taken notice of the potential danger to children and has begun to address it. Wouldn't it be a godsend if Marshall County, Kansas and USD 380 Vermillion, which employs the absurd and inane Tom Schroeder, who drops off children in random parts of Marshall County and does nothing but go home and eat dinner when they disappear, would show some civic concern about child safety, as well?

When Children Do Not Come Home

Time does not erase the pain of people whose lives have been turned upside down by the disappearance or murders of children. Nor does it reduce or eliminate the need to search for the missing or establish protocols when children do not come home.

Tom Schroeder, guidance counselor of the public school in Frankfort Kansas, knowingly took a very big chance of creating such a heartbreak for a family in his school district when he dumped a fourteen year old girl off by herself for cross country practice, four miles away from the school. When she did not return, he shrugged his shoulders and went home and had dinner. The girl's family was told that is the protocol for Frankfort, Kansas when a child disappears. Luckily, the strangers who picked up Schroeder's victim just took her back to the town from which she had been taken.

Quite a few of the locals in Frankfort, Kansas either do not understand the heartbreak caused when a child disappears, or perhaps they do, and it was planned for this family. Either way, the crass reactions of Frankfort Kansas are unacceptable, from blaming the victim to deriding the mother for not "just letting it go."

The video above details a case that started forty years ago, in suburban Maryland. Two young girls, Sheila and Katherine Lyon, ten and twelve years old, simply disappeared one day, in 1975, on their way home from Wheaton Plaza. The event illustrated, quite painfully, that protocols and immediate responses from law enforcement are necessary when a child goes missing. In stranger abductions, such as the case of the Lyon sisters, the victim is usually dead within three hours, according the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The school board for Frankfort, USD 380, has expressed that it is comfortable with children accepting rides from strangers in order to return to school after having been left in random places by teachers.

Today marks the fortieth anniversary of the day that Sheila and Katherine Lyon disappeared. Hopefully, the newer avenues of investigation into the case will bring answers for their parents, John and Mary Lyon. Certainly, no further explanation should be needed by Frankfort, Kansas concerning why Tom Schroeder's actions toward the student he abandoned were criminal. If it was done deliberately, Frankfort High School should just accept the fact that the young lady finally came home safely, despite their criminal attempts, and leave the family alone.

Jailhouse Confession In Lyon Sisters Case

Does anyone remember March 25, 1975, when Sheila and Katherine Lyon, of Maryland, disappeared from Wheaton Plaza? Almost forty years have gone by, with virtually nothing in the way of answers, then a tip was suddenly shared late in 2013. Information and testimony led law enforcement away from Maryland and into Thaxton Virginia, specifically, Taylor's Mountain. Several sites were examined and dug up, and a woman named Patricia Welch was arrested in Virginia for lying to the grand jury about the case.  The newest tidbit of information is that a couple of days ago, a Delaware prisoner by the name of Lloyd Lee Welch admitted that he was a passenger in the car that left Wheaton Plaza with the girls!

After forty years, a backhanded confession. Lloyd Lee Welch still does not admit any contact with them after leaving Wheaton Plaza in the same car with both girls, but by the end of the first day they were missing, it's almost certain that he knew police were searching for them. So why didn't he share his informational gem in 1975? A response from Mr. Welch is not anticipated, as he currently sits in prison because of his inappropriate and unlawful approach to prepubescent girls. He also gave an account to law enforcement in 1975 about the whole thing, omitting, of course, the part about his own presence in the getaway car. A polygraph that was administered at the time indicated that Mr. Welch was deceptive. The only reason he was taken terribly seriously in recent efforts has to do with his intimate knowledge of certain details about this case; the few details that are possessed by law enforcement.

It has also been clarified in recent days that at least one set of remains has been recovered from a dig site on Taylor's Mountain. The process of identifying the remains is still in the works, and hopefully, John and Mary Lyon will get some answers about what happened to their daughters almost forty years ago.

Another Northeast Kansas Stranger Danger Problem

This time, it was Pottawatomie County. Two twelve year old students from St. George, Kansas, took some trash to a recycling bin on Wednesday, and were followed by an older man with whom they were unacquainted. While the two children were able to escape him, he made some overtures that were interpreted by the sheriff's office as attempts to abduct the children, and police would like to find out more. He's been described as an older male with greying hair and a bald spot on the back of his head and a white beard. The man was wearing a black and white striped shirt and blue jeans. He drove a red, four door Chevrolet. Anyone with information should call the Pottawatomie County Sheriff at 785-457-3353.

Hopefully, this was an isolated incident in St George. If the school looks at it's policies about supervision of children, and makes appropriate revisions, this might be the last time a dangerous person ever feels so welcome to make advances toward students right on school property. There have been more reports in the news lately about vulnerable children and strangers in Northeast Kansas, and it's starting to look like it may be time for certain public schools here in Kansas to come into compliance with national standards for student safety.

Yes, There Really Is Stranger Danger In Kansas

When will Kansas learn? Here's a twelve year old, who actually got away from an adult who tried to take her away, but with whom she was not familiar. The man even tried to intimidate the girl by slapping her across the face! Stranger danger. This happened in Topeka, and this child was extremely lucky.

Maybe it's time for USD 380's school board to rethink their situation with Tom Schroeder, the Frankfort guidance counselor/cross country coach who left a high school freshman girl by herself four miles away from school and didn't bother with a phone call to the police or to the girl's parents when he realized that she was missing. Unless his actions were deliberate, and ulterior motives played a role, this kind of carelessness should be reserved only for the families of those who support Schroeder's continued employment, not for those of us who love our children. Of course, if he intended to leave a child in a vulnerable position, awaiting some darker fate, as the stranger in Topeka obviously had in mind for the girl he tried to abduct, Frankfort, Kansas has bigger problems.

Is this what you and USD 380 were trying to do to my daughter, Tom Schroeder? 

Anyone with information about the case in Topeka, detailed in the video, above, is asked to call Crimestoppers at 785-234-0007.

First Day Of School In Frankfort Kansas

School starts again tomorrow in Frankfort, Kansas, and; as promised, this story will appear again on this site, because the school here in Frankfort has not seen fit to come into compliance with safety standards observed by schools in other parts of Kansas, and has not come into compliance with federal law concerning the presence of weapons on school property, bullying, or student safety. The only change made is that credit shall be granted where it is due: the name of the errant and uncorrected guidance counselor who has been granted carte blanche to endanger children is Tom Schroeder.

Anyone who's listening, I will tell you a story. It's a true story, and it happened in October of 2009. Thankfully, it had a happy ending.

My oldest daughter used to be quite the avid cross country buff when she was thirteen years old. She was good at it, too. But one day, while she was at practice, and I was at home, just assuming that all was well, her coach drove past my house, stopping to talk to my eight year old son. Mr. Coach wanted to know if Mr. Eight Year Old had seen his older sister. Mr. Eight Year Old had not. No one had seen my daughter in over two hours. She was lost. Why was she lost? Because her coach had dropped her off by the side of a highway, four miles south of the town we live in, by herself, and just left her. It was part of cross country practice. No supervision. If she had been stung by a bee, had tripped and hurt herself, or had some other medical emergency, no one would have been there to help her. (at this juncture, you should know that I offered to volunteer to help with cross country, but since I do not attend a Christian church, my offer was rejected. The school staff thought it better to take chances with a child's safety in the way I just described) When my daughter realized that she did not know her way back, she started to wander on a side road, hoping it would bring her to a house, or another person. This area has a lot of commercial farms, and there were no houses or places my daughter could go to for help.

Back to my eight year old son.......Twenty minutes went by. While he did not realize the signifigance of his conversation with Mr. Cross County Coach, (also Mr. Guidance Counselor) he did realize that no one knew where his sister was, and it was getting later and later, and no one was looking for her. So he told me about it. I looked all over town, called all her friends, searched the school (why was the school left unlocked after everyone had gone home?) and finally started home to call the police, when a couple of senior boys drove up with my crying daughter in their car. It was still within a few minutes of when I found out she was missing, but this cross country coach had known all afternoon, and had not called the police, or spoken to me. Why? I guess whatever he cared about, it WASN'T my daughter. Well.........I actually DO care about my daughter. Nowhere else have I met a teacher that did NOT care, at least a little, about the children he teaches, but I think that is what the problem is with Mr. Cross Country Coach/ Guidance Counselor.

Suppose it was not young men from her school who found her, but a dangerous person? I have been told time and time again by the people who live in this small Kansas town that "those things don't happen here", and "there ARE no dangerous people here", but there was a sex offender whose address was within half a mile of where my daughter was abandoned. The police were quick to point that out, but the principal only argued his harmlessness as a sex offender with them and the school board is not worried about the incident.

My children no longer participate in cross country at their school. It isn't safe.