Parents livid after 9-year-old girl left locked outside New Jersey school in cold
PATERSON, New Jersey (WABC) -- A 9-year-old girl was left locked outside her school in the bitter cold when her parents were late picking her up from an after-school program.
She got back inside thanks to the kindness of a janitor who heard her pounding on the door.
The 9-year-old shared her account of what happened to her at Paterson Charter School for Science and Technology's after-school program.
"She told us if our parents didn't get here in the next five minutes that we would have to wait outside in the cold, but my dad didn't make it in the next five minutes so I had to wait outside in the cold for at least 10 minutes," the student, who Eyewitness News is not identifying, said. "I didn't have a hat, I didn't have a scarf, I didn't have gloves, I just had my jacket."
She said she was afraid.
The child's mother said the program closes at 5:30, which is when her daughter was led out and left by herself.
By 5:40, the young child was cold and went back to the building to beg to be let back indoors to get warm and wait for her father. Both of her parents work.
"They locked my daughter out, she was out in the cold, no one was there for her, not only that -- she was crying," mother Stacy said.
The child said her dad came to pick her up before she had a chance to call him.
Stacy is livid and even more angry because she said the school did not meet with her when she asked.
"Bear in mind, a situation like this, my daughter was unattended for 15 minutes by herself outside at 9 years old, he couldn't come to the phone to speak to me, he didn't want to talk to me," Stacy said.
A school administrator called Eyewitness News to say they could not comment to the media on issues involving students, but that they have made arrangements to meet with the child's parents.
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