3-year-old is left in Head Start van

By Timothy Pratt

Monday, April 26, 2004 | 11:02 a.m.

A 3-year-old boy was left in a Head Start van at the agency's transportation yard Wednesday afternoon, according to a spokesman for the nonprofit board that runs the early childhood program.

The boy, who had been on a trip with other children to the dentist, had been left in the van for 20 minutes to an hour -- accounts vary -- and program officials said the child was fine.

The boy had fallen asleep and was not noticed by the program employee who was with the children, officials said.

But the child's parents, Monica Garcia and Hector Valencia, say they were lied to Wednesday and were not told their son, Christian, was left on the van. They were told he was at the dentist's office.

Valencia asked where the dentist was so he could pick up his son, but Head Start officials wouldn't tell him, Garcia said.

"We're angry and we just want to know what happened," she said.

Garcia said she still didn't know this morning how long her son was left in the van or what exactly happened.

And the child's grandmother, Martha Arreguin, said the 3-year-old has "been nervous" all weekend. "He says, 'They're leaving me' every time someone walks away from him," she said.

"How can we help him if we don't know what happened to him," Arreguin said.

Head Start is run by the Economic Opportunity Board, the Las Vegas Valley's largest nonprofit agency and the target of two recent federal inquiries.

The incident occurred shortly after 4 p.m., officials said.

Wednesday's high temperature was 82 degrees, reached at 4:52 p.m., according to the National Weather Service. The heat in a vehicle can be 30-40 degrees higher than the outside temperature, according to UMC officials. It was not known if a window was open in the van.

Frank Krukoski, who directs the EOB's transportation division, got a call from one of his employees Wednesday afternoon saying that a van used by the program -- which serves about 1,800 children throughout the Las Vegas Valley -- had been found at a transportation yard with a child asleep inside, Krukoski said.

Krukoski said Las Vegas Metro Police's child abuse detectives had been notified of the incident Friday morning, though he declined to elaborate on the reason for involving the police.

Krukoski said the child had been in the van about an hour. EOB spokesman state Sen. Joe Neal said the child was left in the van about 20 minutes.

The group of Head Start program children had been taken in the van to visit the dentist, a service provided by the federally funded program for low-income families.

A team monitor from the program failed to do a head count of the children when they were returned to the Herb Kaufman Head Start Center, 4020 Perry St., near Nellis Boulevard and Boulder Highway, Neal said.

The van then returned to the EOB's transportation yard.

Neal said a nurse was called to the yard, at Bonanza Road and H Street, just northwest of downtown, and the nurse determined that the child was not dehydrated or otherwise affected by the incident. The child was then taken back to the Head Start center.

Neal said it was unknown how many children were in the van before the child was left inside. Likewise, Neal did not know if or how the child's parents were notified of the incident.

The team monitor has been fired, following an EOB policy that was put in place after children have been left in vehicles in the past, the agency spokesman said.

"This has happened before -- I don't know how many times," Neal said. "That's why we put in procedures."06