A father is asking why he can’t see security footage after he says his special needs son left the campus of a Northside school.
Joshua Owen says that back in August, he was told through a note from Highland Estates Academy that he tried to get out of the playground. “I then found out through DCF, because DCF was notified, they came to talk to us just to see where he lives, type thing. We weren’t under investigation; it was the school under investigation. So I found out this was a much bigger deal than I thought. And not only did my child get out of the playground, but he also seemed to have gotten out of the school, or at least to the front of the school, and there was a period of 5-10 minutes where he was not in anyone’s supervision,” says Owen. “I had asked, at that point, to see the footage because I wanted to see, you know, where he had gone, who he may have interacted with. Just things a normal concerned parent would want, especially considering my child can’t speak for himself.”
A region superintendent told Owen that they could not share the recording, saying it would violate student record protections under FERPA. “I’m like ‘there’s probably times where he’s not around other kids, so I don’t understand why I can’t see my son on video,” argues Owen. He reached out to WOKV following a story from Action News Jax’s Alexus Cleavenger about a special needs student at Ribault High School who was left unsupervised for nearly an hour. The mother of that student saw the footage of her child left unattended…