Minnesota 4-year-old left behind on school field trip

Blake McCoy, KARE-TV, Minneapolis-St. Paul | USATODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption 4-year-old boy left behind on field trip a state away Officials from a school district in Minnesota are apologizing after a 4-year-old student was left behind on a museum field trip to South Dakota, more than an hour away.

Boy went with classmates to Children%27s Museum of South Dakota

He didn%27t get on the bus when it was time to return home

No one noticed the problem until museum employees called the teacher

MARSHALL, Minn. — A parent's worst nightmare came true when a woman's 4-year-old son was left behind on a school field trip more than an hour from home.

The incident happened Tuesday on a trip to the Children's Museum of South Dakota in Brookings, S.D. Making matters worse, teachers and parents who chaperoned didn't realize that AJ Whylly was missing until they had returned home.

"All I'm thinking is no one is accountable for our son right now," Jacqueline Whylly, AJ's mom, said Thursday. "Anyone could have took him. No one was accountable for him. He was neglected and alone."

Museum employees discovered AJ soon after his classmates left, but he has problems speaking. So they called all the schools that visited that day, connecting with AJ's teacher minutes before the buses arrived back in Marshall, about 60 miles away, according to KSFY-TV, Sioux Falls, S.D.

Whylly, who had gone to the school to pick up her son, and her husband then drove to the museum to pick up their son. She said she hopes he's young enough so he won't be traumatized.

She had volunteered to be a chaperone on the trip but was told enough parents already had signed up.

The superintendent of Marshall Public Schools, Klint Willert, apologized and said staff in his 2,100-student school district are reviewing field trip procedures. Marshall, a town of almost 14,000 people, is about 130 miles southwest of Minneapolis.

"It happened as a result of processes and protocols not being followed," Willert said. "The process of counting students before they get on the bus and taking a subsequent head count when the students are on the bus wasn't followed.

"Certainly, this is not the way schools operate and certainly not the way we want to do business," he said.

The Whyllys filed a police report but no charges have been filed.

However, the teacher is being disciplined, Willert said.