Multiple young children wandered off the Cragmont Elementary School campus during the district‑run LEARNS after‑school program last year before they were found and safely returned.
On Nov. 21, three children, ages 4 and 5, asked to leave Cragmont’s cafeteria, where the program is primarily held, and were allowed to go to the bathroom unattended, according to a parent of one of the children, who spoke to Berkeleyside on condition of anonymity.
The parent said the kids left the campus through an unfenced and poorly lit area sometime between 5 p.m. and 5:30 p.m., heading downhill toward Marin Avenue and Spruce Street. A neighbor found the parent’s child walking back toward campus alone and returned them to the school. The guardians of the other two children, the parent said, arrived to pick them up at school, discovered they weren’t there, and reunited with their kids only after searching for them off-campus…