Chicago 6th grader with special needs, ‘scared’ to return to class after being abandoned by school during anti-ICE protest

A Chicago middle schooler with special needs was left alone on a busy highway after being allowed to leave campus to join his classmates’ anti-ICE walkout — leaving his mom furious that the school couldn’t keep her “kid safe.”

Richard Harley, 11, had inadvertently followed his peers out of Dundee Middle School during a staged walkout to protest ICE raids, but soon struggled to keep up with the pack.

His classmates were supposed to stay on Route 72 near the school during the walkout, but the unruly protestors went much farther, Harley said. 

The special needs student ended up wandering dangerously close to a busy intersection — miles away from the school — at Route 72-Higgins Road and Main Street in West Dundee, when he panicked and phoned his mom for help. 

“I don’t feel safe. I’m just scared to go back. Something could happen … again,” Harley told ABC7 News.

“No one even knew how far they were doing. … I was like the last one; so like, I was all alone.”

Harley’s mom, 34-year-old Alexa Blasdell, quickly called the cops, who found the boy at the busy thoroughfare about 10 minutes later.

“He said, ‘you just need come pick me up. I don’t know what’s going on. I’m very scared,’” she recalled.

Blasdell, who said she wasn’t notified about the walkout, is demanding answers. 

“It’s not right, because my kid is supposed to be safe at school,” she said, adding Harley has a federally protected disability plan.

“Why didn’t I get a notification that he was tardy or absent for that matter?”

The mom is furious that Harley, who didn’t understand what the protest was about, was able to leave campus without supervision or parental authorization.

“It’s not right because my kid is supposed to be safe in school. And if they can’t keep my kid safe, then they need to take accountability for that,” she scathed. 

The mom-of-three is now threatening to sue the school district — while faced with the possibility of having to homeschool Harley or find a new school for the sixth-grader. 

“The safety and well-being of every student and staff member is our highest priority,” District 300 Superintendent Martina Smith said in a statement.

“District 300 takes all concerns raised by our families seriously and reviews every situation with great care.”

The district also claimed that families were notified on Feb. 13 — five days before the walkout — that students had ‘expressed interest in a peaceful protest,’ and that the school administration had taken “deliberate, proactive steps to ensure parents were informed.”

The district said it could not “discuss individual circumstances … due to student privacy laws.”