To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.

Then come back here and refresh the page.

At 8:15 a.m. last Tuesday, Samira Alston dropped-off her 9-year-old son Vincent at PS 327 as usual. But two hours later, she says he appeared at his great-grandmother's house, with a man the family had never met. They called Alston, who was home.

"I got on the phone with the man, and he said, 'Hi, my name is Mr. Blair. I was told to remove your son from school,'" recalled Alston. "I said, 'Remove my son from school for what? What is going on?' He said, 'I don't have all of the details, but I know that it has something to do with a letter.' I said, 'Something to do with a letter? I'm not understanding. Who are you?'"

Alston says he told her he was the school janitor, and he'd been instructed to drive the boy home. But once in the car, he let the fourth grader tell him where to go.

"I was scared and I didn't know the man and I wanted to go home quick and I didn't want to take a long trip so I told him to drop me at my grandma's house which is two blocks away," said Vincent Alston.

There was a note from Assistant Principal Michele Cohen, saying Vincent was suspended for one day because he failed to bring a letter back to school signed by his mother. Vincent hadn't shown his mother the letter, which describes his involvement in a hair-pulling incident.

"An assistant principal and this is the call you make? Why didn't you take him out yourself?" asked Samira Alston.

It turns out nobody should have removed Vincent from school. According to the Chancellor's Regulations, only parents or guardians can take their children out of school. And if a child is to be suspended, there is a long list of required procedures including calling the parents, setting up a formal conference, sending home an official letter and preparing school work for the child to do. All of that has to come from the actual principal and only after a serious offense.

But what worries Alston most is nobody called her.

"Why couldn't you pick up the phone and call me? She said because she was too busy doing paperwork," Alston said.

According to the Department of Education, the man involved is actually a school aide. But they say the incident has been referred to the Special Commissioner of Investigations.