PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — A family in Port St. Lucie is left concerned for their son's safety after they went to pick up Jackson Critelli, a kindergartner at Oak Hammock K-8 School, only to realize he went missing at the end of his first day of school.
WPTV followed up on a tip received from the Critelli family, leading Reporter Joel Lopez to St. Lucie County to get answers as to how the mix-up, that led 5-year-old Jackson Critelli to go missing for nearly 25 minutes, could have happened.
"I was horrified because I didn't know where my kid was," Joseph Critelli, Jackson's father, said. "At the same time, (I was) livid because where he was supposed to be safe and monitored there was no one that knew where he was, and couldn't give us a straight answer."
Critelli and his wife were waiting at the parent pickup for nearly half an hour with no signs of Jackson. Their son was eventually found in the family's neighborhood, nearly a mile away.
"He walked through our neighborhood for 40 minutes, we don't know everybody that lives in our neighborhood," Critelli said. "He even said someone did approach him in the neighborhood, but thank god they were just offering him water because they saw him stop in the shade to take a break."
Critelli said during open house, they registered Jackson as pick up, but told his teacher that he and his wife may walk their son home from time to time.
He added that lead to confusion when the teacher submitted the form to school administration.
WATCH: WPTV speaks to Joseph Critelli, father of 5-year-old who went missing after being allowed to leave school alone
WPTV is now looking for answers from the school board as to who is going to be held accountable for this incident and how to ensure it won't happen again.
We reached out to St. Lucie Public Schools and they sent back this statement:
"There was a miscommunication between the teacher and the parents during open house, and it has been resolved."
Our questions as to the process of identifying how Oak Hammock students get home, or if Kindergartners are allowed to leave alone, were unanswered.
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School Board Superintendent Dr. Jon R. Prince was not available for our request to an interview, but School Board Member Jack Kelly agreed to meet with WPTV.
"I don't want to say it's unavoidable, but we're going to do the best we can to make it avoidable and not let it happen again," Kelly said.
Lopez asked Kelly what is being done to prevent the issue from occurring again.
"Exactly (what), I don't know, I don't think the procedures we have already were followed," Kelly said.
WPTV researched into the pick-up policy inside the Oak Hammock handbook—
"A car rider is a student who is picked-up through our car rider loop by a vehicle. Students are not to leave this area except in their vehicle.
If a parent chooses for their child to be a walker, they will wait for their child by the crossing guards. Parents will not be permitted to enter campus during dismissal times. Parents who are walking their children must wait at the crossing guards."
Critelli was told by school officials that they would be changing their process of dismissing students, including spacing the Kindergartners out from the older students. Critelli told WPTV he noticed more administration monitoring dismissal on day two of school.
"They've already stepped up their procedures, but I want to know what they're going to do moving forward to prevent this from happening to anyone else," said Critelli. "He was already brought to where he was supposed to be and instead of questioning why he was there, he was just immediately sent as a walker and we still don't know if he was escorted to the sidewalk."
Jackson's parents said their son has been overwhelmed from the situation, and gave Jackson the day off from school Wednesday.
