JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — On Wednesday afternoon, Ashley Hicks told us she drove to the parent pick-up of the IDEA River Bluff school in Jacksonville’s Arlington neighborhood, early, to get her kids from school.
When she got there, Hicks said her husband called and told her their 7-year-old and 6-year-old sons were already home. Hicks said she had no notice they had left school.
“I’m like, ‘you don’t know that my kids left the premises.’ They said, ‘no,’” Hicks said.
Sometime before school let out around 3:30 PM, Hicks said her kids walked out of their classrooms without any excuse, left the building without being stopped, and walked across four lanes of traffic on University Boulevard to get home to their apartment across the road.
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<
Hicks said she confronted school staff after the call from her husband.
“They said that my 6-year-old son went to his older brother’s classroom, he’s seven, and told him, ‘hey, it’s time for us to go.’ No adult called me. No one said anything. No one reported to me stating that my kids were even gone,” Hicks told us.
Aside from wondering how her young kids were able to walk themselves out of their school building before class let out, Hicks said she’s mainly been stressed thinking that her sons must have walked across the road, alone, to get home.
The Florida Department of Transportation’s data from 2024 shows that at least 9,100 cars drive that particular stretch of University Boulevard every day. After finding out her kids had apparently walked home, Hicks’ mind immediately went to her kids’ safety.
“My kids could have been hit by a car,” Hicks said, “that’s devastating for me to just arrive at the school, to pick up my kids, just for my kids not to be here.”
At the start of the month, Action News Jax reported when one person was killed and two others were hurt after a hit-and-run on University Boulevard. Back in September, we told you when the Florida Highway Patrol found a Pensacola man dead on the road after he’d reportedly been hit by multiple cars.
[DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks]
Hicks is deciding to transfer her kids to another school, mainly because she claims the current school staff hasn’t helped her find ways to prevent this from happening again.
“My child could have been killed on their watch. So I’m very upset. Very upset,” Hicks said.
Action News Jax reached out to the IDEA school for a response to Hicks’ claims. In a statement, the school said this:
“IDEA River Bluff is investigating an incident involving two siblings released from campus prior to dismissal and later found safe. The incident is under investigation. We are also in direct communication with the family. The safety of our students remains our highest priority.”
[SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter]
Click here to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Action News Jax live.
