L.L. Owen Elementary School in the Watson Chapel School District has instituted an enhanced student pick up procedure in order to maximize the safety of each child.
“We started out with a green tag with the student’s name on it that we issued to each family,” said L.L. Owen principal Tim Taylor. “We could tell when we looked at it that it was our tag. The only difference to our policy now is that we have issued rearview mirror tags that have a photo of the child along with the child’s information.”
Taylor said that the school is dependent upon each student’s parent or legal guardian to let them know who can and who cannot pick up their child, explaining that an incident in September of last year in which a seven year old student at L.L. Owen was released into the custody of his biological father without the mother’s permission could have been prevented if the mother had provided more information.
“Each parent needs to fill out the form correctly,” Taylor said. “In that incident the biological father had come to pick up his child and presented the proper identification. We had nothing in that form that said he couldn’t take the child. No restrictions were listed on the form. It really is a shame when situations occur where parents battle over custody of a child like that.”
Under the new procedure, the school issued two tags to every family and can issue them another one if they lose one of them, the principal said.
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“Our primary concern is the safety of the child,” he said.
Taylor said that if a parent comes to pick up their child without the photo identification tag in place in their car, they must go to the principal’s office to sign their child out.
“If you have a car tag the child can gain access and if not then you must present the proper identification in order to pick up your child,” Taylor said.
Taylor said that each child’s parent or legal guardian must fill out a registration form that asks for information on each person who is eligible to pick up that child.
Taylor said that the enhanced policy was put into effect after a report done by a news agency during the 2010-2011 school year chronicled deficiencies in the existing policy.
“They visited our campus as well as others and determined at the time that our policy was a little too lax,” Taylor said.
Taylor said that the photo ID cards were issued to parents on the first day of the spring 2012 semester but were not required until Jan. 9.
“We wanted to give everybody some time to get used to the new system,” Taylor said.
Taylor said that each school in the Watson Chapel School District has the autonomy to formulate its own student policies.
District superintendent Danny Hazelwood said that giving building principals the freedom to make their own policies for the pick up of students is important.
“Each building has to gauge what their individual student pick-up policies need to be,” Hazelwood said. “They need to observe traffic flows and other issues that affect students at their schools.”