The safety of our children in PG County schools is paramount, and every effort must be made to ensure our children's safety. However, because parents are not notified when their child is absent from school until evening, our children are being put at unnecessary risk. Regardless of the student's age, parents should be notified as early as possible in the morning if their child does not arrive at school. Other schools, such as those in Fairfax County, VA have changed their policies, acknowledging that notifying parents in the evening is unsafe. There have been many situations in which a child was endangered as a result of inadequate parental notification policies, such as the special needs child who was left on a bus for over 5 hours and the terrifying case of Kyron Horman, the Oregon boy who never arrived at school and has yet to be found. The outcomes of these cases may have been different if parents had been notified immediately that their child did not arrive to school. A representative from the County Executive's agrees that the policy, which only specifies that parents be contacted, and doesn't specify the time of day, is an unsafe policy, which has been overlooked by PG county school leaders and decision-makers. In order to change this policy, Dr. Maxwell, PGCPS Chief Executive Officer, and the school board need to know that PGCPS parents want the policy to be changed. This is how you can help! By signing this petition, you indicate that you believe the current policy regarding the time of day when parents are notified of a child's absence from school is unsafe and that you agree that parents should be contacted as early as possible in the morning if their child doesn't arrive at school.