The Brief
Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard is working to make a change to the system that he says allowed three children to fall off the grid.
Bouchard says a school lost track of the three Pontiac children after they transferred, allowing them to live on their own for several years in squalor.
PONTIAC, Mich. (FOX 2) - It’s been six months since three kids were found living on their own in deplorable conditions, as their own mother was accused of abandoning them for five years.
State lawmakers are now working to prevent something like this from ever happening again.
Big picture view
People may recall when Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard said a school lost track of the three Pontiac children after they transferred, allowing them to fall off the grid for years. He said he's been working with state lawmakers on a fix that he hopes to have in place by the start of the new school year.
Bouchard was fresh off a state senate committee hearing on a proposed law aiming to close down a gap in the school system blamed for allowing the three children to live on their own for several years in squalor.
They were then found in February, abandoned by their mother, Kelli Bryant, according to prosecutors.
"I was told that one school asked for transcripts and the other school sent it in," Bouchard said. "Both may have presumed the other school had them or didn’t have them.
He said he started pushing for change after finding a key flaw in the school code. He's not alone.
Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald joined Bouchard in backing the proposed law designed to improve communication between schools when students transfer.
"It basically simply says that once you send those transcripts, you can’t assume that the other school have those kids," Bouchard said. "You’ve got to follow up and ask a question before you un-enroll them from your school."
What's next
If no answer is given, Bouchard says it will either trigger a truancy investigation or get police officers involved in figuring out where a kid is, if not in either school.
"What happened? Where did they go? So it just fills that void that these kids fell through and hopefully prevents that from ever happening to another child," Bouchard said.
The backstory
Bryant’s three kids, ages 12, 13 and 15, were found back in February living in filth in a Pontiac condo after the landlord requested a welfare check. Police found trash and feces everywhere.
She was charged with first-degree child abuse.
State Senator Jeremy Moss of Southfield is sponsoring a bill to help children in the future. He’s hoping to have the new law in place by the beginning of the new school year.
"The situation was uncovered in the late winter. We went to work on the bill almost immediately. We took in feedback from education groups to make sure we were writing it correctly."
The Source
FOX 2 used information from previous reporting.
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