Five fired in North Carolina after disabled high school student is left behind on field trip

From The Wilmington Star-News: The Brunswick County (N.C.) school district has fired five employees at South Brunswick High School in Southport because of their involvement in an April 23 incident in which a mentally disabled sophomore was left behind at a field trip at a city park in Wilmington. The employees dismissed were teachers Catherine Anderson and Melanie Ashley, therapeutic assistants Nicholas Green and Morris Cook Jr., and teacher assistant and bus driver Mable McKoy. The student, Tad Speidell, is 16 but has the academic ability of a preschooler, no sense of danger and limited speech. A witnessed spotted Tad alone at the park and said school employees were about to take off on the bus without several students when her boyfriend alerted them. They went to get the students but still left Tad. Tad’s supervisors went back to the school and didn’t notice he wasn’t there until a fellow disabled student asked where he was.