Gena: If a student leaves a classroom and walks home, is the teacher liable for not immediately noticing that the child left?
Elopement: TEACHER LIABILITY FOR ELOPEMENT
Special Education Law and Advocacy
Gena, we can’t give you much advice without knowing more – like child’s age, what is the child’s disability?Does the child live across the street from the school or several blocks away?
Does this child have a history of leaving school like this? What triggers the child’s behavior? Has he had a functional behavior assessment? Was he upset when he left?
I have more questions but I hope with these, you can see that the situation is complicated. No one-size-fits all answer.
The child’s team needs to develop a plan to deal with this before it happens again.
This would be determined by the state laws.