Warren supt.: Schools used all options to locate blind girl who's missed 18 months

WARREN

Warren City Schools superintendent says the visually impaired 15-year-old girl police found in unclean conditions Tuesday in a Beck Street Southeast home last attended Warren schools about 18 months ago.

Superintendent Steve Chiaro said he could not confirm that the girl was visually impaired when she attended eighth grade during the 2012-13 school year. But he said school officials exhausted all options to find her when she didn’t show up to attend her ninth-grade year at Warren G. Harding High School last year.

Police were called to the home Tuesday afternoon by a Youngstown woman who was concerned about the girl. Police said the girl had feces on her pants, and the house was in deplorable condition. Police said they didn’t know if the feces on the girl was human or from a dog in the house.

Police, who called Trumbull County Children’s Services after arriving at the house said the girl had not bathed in two weeks. Children Services was planning to develop a safety plan for the girl and conduct its own investigation, police said.

Police talked with a 61-year-old resident of the home. The girl’s mother, 34, who also said she lived there, arrived later and went to Children Services with her daughter.

A neighbor went to the home Tuesday to assist while police were there.

“She was not covered in feces, and there was food,” the neighbor said. The girl’s shirt was dirty because she’s 95 percent blind and because her house is dirty, but a friend brings food to the house every other day, she said. The neighbor said the people caring for the girl have said the reason the girl hasn’t been to school is because there is no school in this area for blind children, and schools elsewhere are too expensive.

But Chiaro said Warren has a braille typist who can translate any textbook or other materials, and the district has a full-time vision teacher who works with visually-impaired students.

Read more of the story in Thursday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.