A preschool teacher at the “Leptirić” kindergarten in Vršac forgot a three-and-a-half-year-old boy in the bathroom, locked the door, and went home, while his mother, Dijana Katilović, was told that someone else had already taken him home. And no, this is not a movie scene—this really happened a month ago. Outraged because, as she claims, the kindergarten administration is trying to cover up the incident, Dijana has decided to file a lawsuit against the institution and publicly share what happened to her son, who is still seeing a psychologist and dealing with trauma.
Dijana Katilović from Vršac described for Nova.rs the horrifying situation her child experienced on February 23 at the “Leptirić” kindergarten, which operates within the preschool institution “Čarolija” in this city.
“On that day I came to pick up my child at around 4 p.m. His teachers had already gone home, while children who stay after 3 p.m. are taken to a supervising room with a duty teacher. When I asked for him, they told me someone had already taken him home. I was shocked and screamed at the top of my lungs,” the shaken mother told our portal.
As she further explains, she immediately started shouting, and a woman from the street told her to go to the police station nearby.
“I called our teacher, and she called the duty teacher. In the meantime, they unlocked the kindergarten, and the teacher who had locked him in arrived. The child was in the bathroom, red from crying, exhausted. She admitted she had locked him in and forgotten about him. He was inside much longer than she claims—two or three minutes. Because by the time I called one teacher, she called the other, and until she arrived… more than ten minutes had passed.”
She apologized, but…
As Dijana further explains, the teacher apologized, saying she had made a mistake.
“She wanted to talk to me, but I simply didn’t want to, I couldn’t. What was I supposed to talk to her about? I cannot forget the scene when I saw him like that. In her first statement she said there was another child in the room besides my son, and in the last one that there were six children. I cannot get the footage until we file a lawsuit through a lawyer, which I will do because I cannot allow this to be silenced.”
According to the mother, the teacher gave two different versions of the incident.
“She completely lost track of how many children there were, she probably thought there were none left and went home. She also says she thought he had already gone home, and at the same time that she forgot him. So she has two stories. I don’t even know her—I saw her for the first time when she opened the door.”
Dijana says she remained silent until she saw how the preschool administration would respond. She expected, she says, that the teacher would be suspended.
“I didn’t speak about this earlier because I wanted to wait and see what the kindergarten, or the director, would do. But since they did nothing, I realized they want to cover it up because we are not even allowed to talk about it. They took statements from both me and her, and that was it. I still haven’t received any decision about what was done to her, although they said they would send it. Until then, she is working completely normally.”
The child is still seeing a psychologist
Since the incident, the boy has been seeing a psychologist. The mother says he has withdrawn and changed, but that after a month he is slowly improving.
“I don’t even want to think about how it could have ended. We are going to a psychologist, working through the issue of being locked in, because that is what he is most afraid of, which is understandable. He is afraid to go anywhere alone, he doesn’t want us to turn off the lights at home, he just says: ‘Mom, I was looking for you, I was locked in.’ So we are working on it, the psychologist said he has withdrawn into himself and simply does not want to talk about it.”
They are planning, she says, to transfer him to another kindergarten.
“The psychologist said the child should continue going to kindergarten so he can overcome his fear as quickly as possible, so he returned already the next day after the incident. However, when I left him, he started crying. Then the psychologist said he definitely needs to change kindergarten because he no longer trusts anyone there.”
On Monday, she adds, she was called to a meeting at the preschool institution.
She expected to be told what action had been taken regarding the case—but nothing followed.
“The teacher was present, along with the director, deputy director, lawyer, and secretary. They said they are aware of the situation and that she admits she made a mistake and apologized to me. I accepted the apology, but that doesn’t change anything for me or my child. This could happen to another child, and that must be stopped,” the mother emphasized.
The Nova.rs newsroom contacted the head of the “Leptirić” kindergarten, as well as the administration of the “Čarolija” preschool institution under which it operates.
A comment and answers to questions about what measures were taken regarding the case were requested. However, no response had been received by the time of publication.
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Source: nova, Foto: SCHMANN / Shutterstock