A family is suing the Los Angeles Unified School District after their noncustodial mother, described as homeless and a drug user, took their children from Lanai Road Elementary School in Encino without permission. The children, ten-year-old Liam and his eight-year-old sister, were taken during the Beyond the Bell afterschool program on May 14. The children’s grandmother, Lucia Jasso, was shocked to find the children missing when she arrived to pick them up and was distressed to learn that the school had allowed their mother to take them. It took nine hours for the family to locate the children, who were found safe at the home of the mother’s boyfriend’s mother in Compton. The incident has left the children and their family traumatized.
