School Loses Kindergartner but Doesn’t Tell Mom, Putting Her in Nightmare Scenario at Pickup

A mom found herself living every parent's nightmare after dropping her kid off at school, only to come back later in the day to pick them up and be told that her child was absent all day.

Yessii (@thatsyessiii) documented the horrifying scenario in a series of TikToks that begin with a 36-second clip when she first accuses the school of losing her kid.

"POV: When I drop off my KINDERGARTNER at school at 7:50 and I go pick him up at 1 just to get told my child was absent !!! (In other words LOST)" she writes in a text overlay of her video. She records herself in what looks like the school's main office.

A staff member of the school asks her if she's here for her son. "We show him absent," they tell her, off camera. Yessii can be heard crying as she records the video, calling the school's actions "unacceptable."

In a follow-up video she seems to suggest that the school's drop-off protocol is partially to blame, as she writes that parents weren't allowed to enter the building or walk their kids to their classrooms. "They didn’t even let parents inside the school building or even walk their children to class for the first day of school or second day."

Yessii continues in the message appended to her video, "Not even the kindergartners. You were only allowed in the school building unless they were going inside the office. But a lady from the office had to open the door for you and let you in."

In the video, she cries into the camera, stating that she wouldn't wish this feeling upon her "worst enemy," and relays how her heart sank after seeing her child wasn't brought out from his classroom after the first day of school.

"They're trying to figure out where my son is at. It took them a while to come and get me to let me in the office. Mind you I was sobbing the first day of school because they don't let us walk our children inside the classroom for 'safety purposes,' right?" she narrates.

While she was able to drop him off and pick him up on the first day of school without issue, the second day she was told her son was "absent."

She said a school employee asked her if she was sure she dropped him off at school, which left Yessii flabbergasted. "10 minutes before 8 o'clock I watched him go all the way in. I was in, I was literally admiring the whole moment, that he was going in 'cause we were waving at each other."

Yessii goes on to say that she was flipping out in the office upon hearing that the school effectively lost her son. She then said that person at the front desk went on to phone "every single Kindergarten teacher" in the school, but none of the calls brought her closer to reuniting with her son.

Furthermore, Yessii was shocked that the school wasn't enlisting the help of a security guard or other personnel in the school to locate her child. "I did not see that energy at all whatsoever." That's when she took it upon herself to leave the office and walk through the halls screaming for her son's name until he heard her.

After entertaining a litany of awful scenarios, thinking that her son somehow got out of school and wandered away on his own, or other harrowing scenarios, she continued to search for him. She ended up outside on the playground, where she saw a supervisor monitoring a group of children.

After she began speaking to the school staff member, she heard a child crying. She turned around and it was her son, who she immediately embraced.

In a follow-up video, she shared a recording of her distressful experience. She documents her walk through the school and out onto the yard, where children could be heard playing.

She captured the moment she spotted her son. As it turns out, he ended up joining a first-grade class for Physical Education instead of sticking with his fellow kindergartners and leaving at 1 p.m.

Yessii writes in an overlay of the clip: "My poor baby was so confused! He was having P.E. with a first-grade class. Mind you he is supposed to be up in the front for pickup at1 with the rest of the kindergarten class."

Numerous TikTokers responded that they were appalled by the way Yessii's concerns weren't addressed after seeing the recording she shared online. Someone else, who said they work in a school, wrote that they would've gone about ensuring her child was safe immediately.

"I work at a school and the first thing they would’ve done was lock down the whole campus and report it on the speaker," they wrote.

Others couldn't understand how she wasn't notified her child was absent: "Aren't schools supposed to call you after every teacher takes attendance asking why the child was absent? I know the school for my kids does. This is so frustrating hearing the poor mom and everyone in there."