An Illinois school completely lost a child, and AirTag found him

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in AirTag

A kindergarten school in Illinois lost a child on his first day, but his mother tracked him down through Find My and an AirTag she'd given him.

Black backpack with an Apple AirTag attached to a strap near the top of the flap.
AirTag



It's not clear whether the child knew about the AirTag, although when he's older you can bet he'll figure out how to leave it where his mother thinks he should be. And when he's much older, she may be hearing about the kid's psychiatry bill.

But for now, Shannon Stoker is glad to have snuck the AirTag into the six-year-old Stevie's backpack as he attended his first day at Founders Elementary School in DeKalb. According to Shaw Local News Network, the school told Stoker to say that her child had been absent all day.

"He could have been anywhere," Stoker said. "It was definitely running through my head that when the little bus came to pick him up in the morning that I put him on -- 'Was that even a real bus? Did I ship him off with some predator?'"

"I kept staring at the AirTag," she continued, "and being like, 'If I had not had that AirTag, this would have been so much worse.'"

Stoker says that she had been checking Find My randomly through the day, and it always showed her son being at the school. However, the school bus was due to take Stevie to a children's center and Stoker phoned to check the details about picking him up.

Following that, the school phoned her at 3:58pm saying that Stevie was absent. At some point around then, Stoker lost contact with the AirTag, although it later resumed working.

She phoned 911 and Stevie's father, Andy Stoker, then tracked the AirTag to find that his son was on the school bus -- but the driver and another employee denied it.

"There are two [police] officers there already with a drone looking for him," Andy Stoker says. "The bus driver said no. I was on with dispatch like 'There's no child with that name on this bus.'"

"I'm looking at my son and I go, 'He's right there. That is my child,'" continued Andy Stoker.

Reportedly three employees including the driver were adamant that the child in question was not Stevie. Andy Stoker says they insisted that "this is some other child, and he was getting dropped off somewhere else."

"It is insanity," said Shannon Stoker. "How could they not care about any of this? The school marked him absent and nobody called me all day long."

A second child went missing



It appears that Stevie was mixed up with another child at the school, possibly first thing in the morning. But that afternoon, a second child, Joah, was not on the school bus he should have been -- and he did not have an AirTag.

Steven Ermilio and his wife found their son Joah after about 10 minutes, finding him crying on a street corner. Bus drivers are reportedly not allowed to let children off unless a parent collects them, but somehow Joah either had been -- or was never on the bus.

Another child had seen Joah crying and fetched help from his own mother. That mother was trying to find Joah's parents when Steven Ermilio reached him.

The Stokers have now removed their son Stevie from the school.

Founders school has since apologized for what it described as "failures at almost everything" in the incident. That includes its automated system that should notify parents if a child has not attended school by 10:00 a.m.

AirTags are specifically designed for tracking objects, they are not intended to be used to track people. For all their usefulness, AirTags have also highlighted many problems of stalking.



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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    Holy crap!  That's insane.  I get the school wanting to protect a child from someone who might not be a parent, but the combination of the AirTag, the kid identifying their parent, and the parents' phones undoubtedly having years of pictures should have been at least a clue.
    watto_cobralinkman
  • Reply 2 of 8
    AirTags are specifically designed for tracking objects, they are not intended to be used to track people.

    Then the AirTag was successful in tracking Stevie's backpack! Luckily he happened to be wearing it!

    watto_cobra
  • Reply 3 of 8
    thttht Posts: 5,705member
    Hehe. 

    Give the school a break. Sounded like everyone was doing what they were trained to do. There’s always edge cases or weird happenstances that make for news stories, but 99.9% of the time, they make it work. 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 4 of 8
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,760member
    It’s great that everything worked out despite the inherent limitations of the AirTag technology. I wonder if some people actually believe that an AirTag is a realtime geo tracker? In any case the saddest part of this story was this quote from the mother:

    Was that even a real bus? Did I ship him off with some predator?” 

    Have we actually reached a level of social dysfunction and widespread paranoia where such a question would be one of the first things that would pop into someone’s head? Sigh…
    edited August 28 watto_cobra
  • Reply 5 of 8
    thttht Posts: 5,705member
    dewme said:
    It’s great that everything worked out despite the inherent limitations of the AirTag technology. I wonder if some people actually believe that an AirTag is a realtime geo tracker? In any case the saddest part of this story was this quote from the mother:

    Was that even a real bus? Did I ship him off with some predator?” 

    Have we actually reached a level of social dysfunction and widespread paranoia where such a question would be one of the first things that would pop into someone’s head? Sigh…
    A bit of both perhaps. The news is now at your fingertips instead of having to turn on a TV in the living room, or before that, reading a newspaper. Moreover, that news is pushed at you at every possible avenue using the most traumatic language possible, by multi-billion dollar companies. Murder-death-kill news is just about 90% of news. That puts a lot of stress on a person, and yeah, it can cause some crazy thoughts.

    On the other hand, the news is worldwide. Somewhere, anywhere around the world, something bad is happening. I think the level of bad in society has generally decreased over time. It's the most fair and peaceful time ever. However, the news will find bad things and blast it into your face in the most traumatic fashion possible. That social dysfunction will be found and broadcasted. It makes it appear that things are worse than they are which puts stress on people, causing crazy thoughts.

    I would not have thought it possible in my formative years in 1970s through the 1990s. TV was on a lot, with a lot of people saying TV is bad, bad, bad for you. I don't watch TV news whatsoever anymore. Apple News? All national newspapers are basically blocked, but I read through it a lot. It isn't what these serious journalists were saying was bad, TV in of itself. It is in fact the journalists themselves and their business that is bad for people. All the other entertainment stuff, sports, movies, etc? All great.
    muthuk_vanalingamwatto_cobra
  • Reply 6 of 8
    eriamjheriamjh Posts: 1,764member
    "I'm looking at my son and I go, 'He's right there. That is my child,'" continued Andy Stoker. 

    Reportedly three employees including the driver were adamant that the child in question was not Stevie. Andy Stoker says they insisted that "this is some other child, and he was getting dropped off somewhere else."

    That's some scary stuff when they tell a parent that's not their own child.

    linkman
  • Reply 7 of 8
    danoxdanox Posts: 3,427member
    So did he fall asleep in the back of the bus hiding all day a small enclosed space?
    edited August 28
  • Reply 8 of 8
    linkmanlinkman Posts: 1,046member
    This is inexcusable! The most precious things in our lives are our kids. We entrust the school system and its operators to take complete care of them. If a bank makes one error in a million transactions we get ticked off but it's fixable; essentially losing a kid in even one in a trillion transactions does not meet the minimum standard. 
    muthuk_vanalingam
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