(WWJ) — Lansing lawmakers could introduce legislation as soon as next week that would close the gap when students move from one school to another, ensuring that the student does not “fall through the cracks.”
The Oakland County Sheriff’s office said in a press release Tuesday that Oakland County lawmakers from both chambers of the state legislature are planning to introduce a bill to amend the school code to “tighten the procedure for enrolling and unenrolling a student who moves from one school to another.”
The proposed legislation comes a week after a Pontiac mother was charged with three counts of first-degree child abuse for allegedly abandoning her children, leaving them to live in absolute squalor for several years.
The children — ages 12, 13 and 15 — did not attend school for several years. Sheriff Mike Bouchard called for changes to the school code after the case came to light.
Bouchard’s office says one school in Pontiac requested the transcripts of the children from the school where they were currently students. They never actually moved to a new school and neither school had them enrolled and the school where they had previously been enrolled dropped them from the rolls, presuming they had moved, according to the sheriff.
“This wasn’t a crack these children slipped through, but a deep cavern from which they did not emerge for years,” Bouchard said, per a press release. “We must find a process to ensure that any potential handoff between schools is verified with written confirmation to ensure no children are lost in the future. I greatly appreciate the bipartisan legislative effort to change the school code to prevent such a tragedy going forward.”
Rep. Tom Kuhn (R-Troy) and Rep. Brenda Carter (D-Pontiac) are expected to introduce a bill to the House, while Sen. Jeremy Moss (D-Southfield) is expected to introduce the bill in the Senate. The Oakland County delegation in the House and Senate are expected to join as co-sponsors, according to the sheriff’s office.
The school code gives “scant guidance on actual procedures for unenrolling/re-enrolling students.” The proposed legislation, meanwhile, would “require a confirmation of enrollment of a student before the student’s previous school would be able to unenroll them,” per the sheriff’s office.
In this case, the previous school received a records request from the new school, but the children never actually enrolled in that school so both schools thought that they were at the other school. This bill would close that gap in the law.
Kelli Marie Bryant, 34, is being held on $250 million bond and could spend the rest of her life behind bars, if convicted.
Prosecutor Karen McDonald said last week the kids suffered “unimaginable abuse and neglect over a long period of time.” McDonald said Bryant had been living at an apartment in Pontiac with her four children in 2019. At some point in 2020 or 2021 she moved out, leaving three of the children behind and sending the fourth to live with their father, while the other child went to live with their father.
Police discovered the children at the apartment on Friday, Feb. 14 when the landlord called them to do a welfare check on Bryant, who allegedly had not paid rent since last October. Officers found Bryant’s daughters, ages 12 and 13, hiding in a bathroom that was “filled with feces, piles of trash and completely non-functional,” McDonald said. Their 15-year-old brother was hiding in another room.
McDonald said police were “astonished to find anyone in the location because it appeared to be uninhabitable with piles of garbage and refuse several feet high, including large amounts of human excrement.”
Bryant is scheduled to appear in court next Tuesday for a probable cause conference.
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