A Memphis mother says she is still waiting for real answers after her 6-year-old nonverbal autistic son slipped out of his elementary school unnoticed and was found standing in the middle of a busy street. Monika Cisko says a crossing guard pulled her son to safety on Latham Street outside A. B. Hill Elementary School on Tuesday, in an incident she says staff could not fully explain to her afterward.
Cisko arrived at the school around 3:15 p.m. that day to pick up her son, only to learn something had gone wrong, according to FOX13 Memphis. A teacher's assistant told her what had happened, and Cisko says school staff did not even know her son was missing before the crossing guard intervened.
Mother Says Staff Could Not Explain How Her Son Got Outside
According to Cisko, school staff could not explain how her son left the building or how long he had been outside on his own. She says the crossing guard who found him told her the boy had been in the street for about a minute before being brought back to safety. Cisko says she fears that without that intervention, her son could have been struck by a passing vehicle or a school bus.
Cisko told the station she was frustrated that no one from the school contacted her directly to walk her through what happened, and said staff need to do more to keep watch over the children in their care. She said her son had felt comfortable at A. B. Hill Elementary before the incident, but the experience has left her questioning whether another school could keep him any safer, even as she now tries to transfer him elsewhere.
School and District Have Offered Few Details So Far
FOX13 Memphis asked Memphis-Shelby County Schools to confirm the incident, explain how the student left without staff noticing, and detail the safety protocols in place for students with special needs. The outlet also asked how long the child had been outside and whether the district had opened an investigation. A district representative said only that officials were looking into the incident and would respond soon, and as of FOX13's latest report, the district had not provided additional answers about the incident or its school safety procedures.
Derrick McIntosh, the principal of A. B. Hill Elementary, declined to comment on the record about the incident, as did the crossing guard who found the boy.
What District Policy Says About Supervision and Transfers
The Memphis-Shelby County Schools student handbook states that students with disabilities are included across all Memphis-Shelby County Schools, and spells out that the district shall offer student transfers so that parents, legal guardians, and custodians have options beyond their assigned school, according to the MSCS Student Parent Handbook. The same handbook requires that accidents occurring on school property or under approved district-employee supervision be reported in writing within 24 hours. It also outlines a process for parents to challenge decisions of a school's Section 504 Committee, including grievance or due-process procedures tied to a student's identification, evaluation, placement, or provision of a free appropriate public education.
Why Elopement Is a Known Risk for Autistic Children
What happened on Latham Street fits a pattern researchers call elopement, defined broadly as any time a child leaves supervision, whether by slipping out of a classroom or running off in a hallway, per the Autism Research Institute's elopement webinar materials. The group cites research showing nearly half of autistic children have eloped after age four, and notes that among caregivers whose children have eloped, nearly half reported their child was at risk of serious injury, while more than 40 percent said they received no guidance on how to address it. The organization identifies drowning, vehicle traffic, and busy streets as among the biggest dangers facing children who wander off, and recommends prevention measures including increased supervision, GPS trackers, door and window alarms, and identifying information for nonspeaking children.
For Cisko, those statistics are now a lived reality rather than an abstraction. She is pressing ahead with efforts to move her son to a different school, even as she says she still does not know exactly how he ended up alone on a street outside the building meant to be watching him.
