Boy found wandering on interstate 40 ramp

The boy told police he was walking to his day-care center because he had missed the van that was supposed to take him there.

School authorities said they would investigate the incident, which occurred Friday morning when the boy left Cedar Bluff Primary School.

Motorists saw the boy by the interstate and called 911. The boy was found unharmed and was returned to his mother.

“This clearly is something that never should have happened, and the director of elementary education will review it with school administrators and see if there was some failure in the process and procedure for dismissal of students,” Knox County Schools spokesman Russ Oaks said.

Oaks said that since Friday was the last day of school, there was a change in routine that might have contributed to the problem.

The state Department of Children’s Services and the Knox County Sheriff’s Office also will investigate.

The incident appears to have begun when the boy left his classroom to meet a van to take him to his day-care center. The boy apparently got confused and never made it to the van.

When the driver of the van noticed him missing, she alerted school officials who called 911 and were told the boy had been found.

Hope Ramsey, assistant director of boy’s daycare center, Clubhouse Child Care, said teachers typically walked the child to the van.

“There should not have been a change in schedule,” Ramsey said. “A teacher should have taken him to the van.

“By the grace of God he was not run over or picked up by somebody,” she said.