13-year-old special needs child dropped off at wrong middle school

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. - A family is demanding answers after their special needs; non-verbal 13-year-old son is dropped off at the wrong DeKalb County middle school.

The Porterfield family said their son; Cason attends Tucker Middle School, but instead was taken to Henderson Middle School on the first day of school.

“Cason is nonverbal so we are his voice and the fact that he could not tell the teachers, you know I am not supposed to be here, I am not a Henderson student, I am Tucker student, that really is what made this a little bit more, for us, maddening,” said Cason’s father, Paul Porterfield.

Porterfield said the school never contacted them and it was Cason’s teacher at Tucker Middle School who realized he was not present and called.  That’s when Porterfield said Cason’s mother frantically called the bus driver to find out where her son was only to learn he had been dropped off at Henderson Middle School.

“When my ex-wife went in, that they just said, we wondered kind of who he was,” said Porterfield. “It wasn’t like they hadn’t even really tried to determine who is this little red headed kid sitting in their classroom.”

The DeKalb County School District issued the following statement to FOX 5 News.

“First, we are relieved to have located the student at a nearby campus. That campus, Henderson Middle School, is where the student is originally zoned to attend. DCSD provides comprehensive services to each of its exceptional education students regardless of their home school, and this student is attending Tucker Middle School because that is a nearby site that provides the services he requires.

A review of the situation by the regional superintendent and Transportation Department indicates the student was inadvertently transported to Henderson Middle School based on incorrect information submitted by the family. That information indicated the student attended Henderson Middle School, which was not the case. The bus delivered the student to Henderson Middle School based on that information.”

But Porterfield showed FOX 5’s Nathalie Pozo a school transportation document submitted by Cason’s mother that states the school information including the name is “to be completed by school staff only.”

 “Just feels very incompetent and it feels as if they, somebody needs to be able to tell us why that happened,” said Porterfield.