Woodward, Okla. — “I’m on Mrs. Yeager’s side.”

Kristina Boyce, the ex-wife of a man who got into a scuffle with Cedar Heights Principal Sharon Yeager on Feb. 24, said she is “sick of the drama they are creating over this.”  Boyce was speaking in reference to how her ex-husband and his current wife have handled the fallout from the scuffle which occurred during a meeting with Yeager to discuss an incident where her third-grade son walked home without permission on Feb. 22.

She said she didn’t appreciate the boy’s stepmother talking about the incident “all over the radio” and other media, particularly because “it’s not her child.  I’m the mom.”

Boyce also said she didn’t agree with the two women who spoke against Yeager and called for her retirement at Monday’s school board meeting, which Boyce also attended.

“I don’t think she should lose her job over this,” she said.

‘SHE’S A GREAT PRINCIPAL’

“I think my ex-husband is blowing it all out of proportion,” Boyce said, explaining that she has “never had any problems or nothing” with Yeager.

“I think she’s a great principal,” she said.

She said she did not have any problems with how Yeager handled the incident where her son walked home without permission.

In discussions with Yeager about the incident, she said the principal was “calm; . . . she was nice and polite.”

“I’ve gotten a full apology from the school,” Boyce said, noting that “she (Yeager) told me she was very sorry it happened and that it would never happen again.”

She added that she has been assured that the school “is correcting the situation.”

HOW THE BOY WAS ABLE TO WALK HOME

Boyce explained that her son was able to walk away from the school because of “two wrongs.”

The first wrong she said was that “my son never should have walked home.”  She noted that “he knows not to do it again.”

But the second wrong was that the school “should have supervised him,” she said.

Boyce said at one point she was told by school officials that “the only reason they know where the kids are at is by them (the students) following their routine.”

“But I told them children need to be supervised,” she said, noting the incident revealed a flaw in an otherwise orderly student release system.

In the system, she said students who walk home line up first and then the students who go to the cafeteria to wait until they are picked up by their parents line up immediately behind them.  

On Feb. 22, her third grade son happened to be “the last one in the walk home line and the first one in the cafeteria line.”  When the walkers left the room, she said her son just followed them out having gotten it in his head that it was okay to walk home that day.

Somehow the boy’s teacher hadn’t noticed him walking out with that group of students, but Boyce said the teacher quickly realized his absence when it came time to take the other group of students to the cafeteria.  She said the teacher then immediately began trying to look for the missing boy.

Once Boyce, who was waiting in line to pick up her two boys, was told that her 9-year-old was missing and they couldn’t find him anywhere in the school, she said she got the idea that he might have tried to walk home.  She called the boy’s uncle to have him check the walking trail for the boy, which would have been about 10 to 15 minutes after he was discovered missing.

“Five minutes later he called me back and said (the boy) just came walking in the door,” she said.

SAFE ASSURANCES

Had her son not been found safe, Boyce said, “my reaction would be much different” to the situation.

But because he was safe and because “the teacher is paying more attention” to which students are in which lines at the end of the school day, she said she isn’t worried about her kids’ safety while at Cedar Heights.

“Even Mrs. Yeager assured me that my children are safe and I believe her,” Boyce said.

“Nobody’s perfect, not even for us parents.  All it takes is for one moment and we can turn around and they’re gone,” she said, adding “I can’t imagine being just one teacher with 22 students.”

“And as long as they are taking steps to correct the situation, that’s all that matters,” Boyce said.  “And that it never happens again.”