Currently in DD2, if a child has an unexplained absence or fails to show up for school the parents or guardian are currently not contacted  and informed their child failed to show up to school until, as of now, starting at 4:30 pm. This is a huge safety concern and needs to be addressed immediately. 
 As of now if a child were abducted at the bus stop or on his or her way to school the parents would not be able to alert police until the critical time period in the recovery process  had been over for hours. According to the FBI and theNCMEC  the first few hours of a child's abduction  are critical in the recovery process. 76% of the estimated 115 children abducted by non family members  each year are killed after the first 3 hours and 33% of those children are abducted on their way to school.  
 In today's economy not all parents can afford to drive their children to school and unfortunately not all parents are able and or willing to wait at the bus stop with their children. Those  factors and the statistics alone should be enough for SC to make a change. The change  needed is Tabithas law , this law would mandate public school districts INCORPORATE an efficient system of communication between school administrators and parents regarding a child's unexplained absence into the current attendance notification system, parent link. In a addition it also mandates that parents of any student who will be absent contact the school immediately if their child will not be attending school that day.
  I have contact several  members of local legislation  as well as our school board. for the most part my concerns  have gone ignored by the school board except in statement  the DD2 school board spokeswoman Pat Raynor gave to Summerville patch, a local online news paper, regarding my concern. Ms. Raynor stated  to the patch that the current system used to notify parents is NOT a way to alert parents if their child is abducted  its just a way to let parents know their child was not at school and to remind them to bring a note and if a parent is concerned about leaving their child at a bus stop they can take them to school and drop them off early. This statement is not acceptable and  should not be ok with SC  and is hardly an answer to the reality that many children are kidnapped on their way to school. All this did was confirm that there is no system in place to notify a parent if their child is taken.
 Last Friday October 5 a 10 year old  Colorado girl was abducted while she was on her way to school, her lifeless body was found  this past wed 6 miles away from where she was last seen. The reality of  this is real and should be taken seriously  and every effort  should be made  to recover a child alive in the unfortunate event one of our children is abducted.  Every minute  that passes after a child's abducted is devastating in locating that child alive . If a child is taken at a bus stop at 6:50 am and the school does not let a parent know  their child never showed up to class until 4:30pm the chance of locating the child alive is now less then 20%.  That percent is not okay with me and should not be ok with any one. Don't allow one of our children to become a statistic and join the long list of children that have been abducted on their way to school. 
   The first few hours of a child's abduction are most vital in the recovery process as of now our schools are ignoring this fact. Tabitha's law is intended to help provide an early warning trigger during that critical time. The benefits of  this requirement will be realized even if only one child is saved.

according to the NCMEC 36% of attempted non family abductions happened while a child was on his or  her way to or from school.

80% of abductions by strangers, non family,  occur near the child's home.....

a 2006 study titled case management for missing children homocide: report 2 stated an estimated 100 children who are abducted in the US ends in the child's murder 76.2% of those 100 children are dead within the  first  THREE HOURS. don't let are schools  allow valuable time to slip away.