Kapa’a residents Joseph Bento and his common-law wife, Linda McCane, bring their 4-year-old twin sons to the A-Plus after-school program at Kapa’a Elementary School because they feel their children will be well taken care of. That didn’t happen on Thursday
Kapa’a residents Joseph Bento and his common-law wife, Linda McCane, bring their 4-year-old twin sons to the A-Plus after-school program at Kapa’a Elementary School because they feel their children will be well taken care of.
That didn’t happen on Thursday for one of their children, the couple claimed, a situation that sent them into sheer panic.
The child was missing from the after-school program, but was found about two hours later at a business in Kapa’a town, more than a mile from the school. Kaua’i Police Department officers and the parents think the boy walked along busy Kawaihau Road and Kuhio Highway to get there.
The boy was put under the care of KPD officers, who had been summoned to the scene.
Bento said he is mystified as to how the A-plus program personnel lost track of his son, and how his son was able to get down to Kapa’a town, a distance of more than a mile.
“Think of all the things that could have happened to him,” Bento told The Garden Island. “He could have been hit by a car, or picked up by someone.”
Bento, who works as a groundskeeper at Hanalei Bay Resort in Princeville, said he planned to meet with school officials on Friday, and was going to file a complaint with them.
“I want to find out how something like this can happen. How does my 4-year-old walk off the (school) premises without anybody knowing, without someone realizing he is gone?” Bento said. “This is unacceptable.”
Neither Daniel Hamada, the state Department of Education Kaua’i complex area superintendent, nor Dora Hong, principal of Kapa’a Elementary School, were available for comment on Friday or yesterday.
Bento said the incident started around 2:15 p.m. on Thursday, when his wife drove to the school campus to pick up their sons.
Upon arrival at the school, McCane, Bento said, saw one son, but not the other.
“One of the ladies there said the missing boy was in a classroom, and that people were waiting for him,” Bento said. “After a 15-to-20-minute wait, my wife became concerned, and she (along with the other son) went to the classroom (where her other son was supposed to be), but nobody was there.”
A search ensued, and McCane was told that her missing son had gone to the cafeteria earlier with five other youths from the program, Bento said.
Bento said he later found out that his son “never made it (to the cafeteria), but that the other students made it. This kind of thing should never have happened, not with kindergarten (students),” Bento said. Bento contended that nobody from the A-plus program “checked to see if he was in the cafeteria.”
Leaders of the state’s A-Plus after-school program provide child care and enrichment activities for children who might otherwise not have supervision at home, in the weekday hours after school until 5 p.m.
The program leaders help members of families whose parents work day jobs, especially when single parents or both parents work.
shocked him, Bento said.
He had returned from work, and was pulling onto the street of his home in Kapa’a, when his wife, who was driving and was a few vehicles behind him, called him on the cell phone to tell him about their missing son, Bento said.
“I U-turned back to the school,” Bento said. “I looked for him in the cafeteria, and with the teaching staff, we went room-to-room, thinking he had stopped in one of the rooms to play with toys.” After an hour or 90 minutes, the frustrated parents called police to report their son missing.
When police officers didn’t arrive quickly, his wife called again, Bento said.
“She was in hysterics,” Bento said, “and the (police) dispatcher said ‘hang on,’ and reported an officer was with her son in Kapa’a.”
Bento surmised his son somehow walked down Kawaihau Road before stopping off at one of the retail stores in town.
There, a sales clerk apparently called the police, and kept the boy safe until a police officer arrived at the scene, Bento said.
The child was united immediately with his parents after he was found, but the parental concerns linger.
“I am just livid with Kapa’a Elementary School,” Bento said.
