Pontiac child abandonment case leads to proposed changes to Michigan school code

Proposed Michigan bill would help track student enrollment

According to a press release from the Oakland County Sheriff's Office, Sheriff Michael Bouchard proposed the change following the discovery that a 15-year-old boy and two girls, 13 and 12, were allegedly abandoned by their mother and forced to live in squalor for four to five years.

PONTIAC, Mich. (FOX 2) - After three children were found living alone in a filthy Pontiac home for years, Michigan lawmakers are pushing to change what happens when a student leaves a school, so that other kids pulled from school don't end up in a similar situation.

The backstory:

Authorities say the three children were left alone inside a Pontiac condo in either 2020 or 2021. Their mother, Kelli Bryant, lived at another home and would periodically drop food off at the condo.

According to the sheriff's office release, there is a gap in the Michigan school code that allowed the children to be removed from school without detection. Bouchard said that the children had left a school, which un-enrolled them after assuming they had moved to another school. The previous school had received a transcript request from the new school, but never received confirmation that the children had actually enrolled, according to Bouchard.

"This wasn't a crack these children slipped through, but a deep cavern from which they did not emerge for years," Bouchard said.

Bourchard said that proposed legislation, expected to be introduced next week, would stop this from happening by requiring a school to confirm that a student was enrolled at another school before dropping them. The bill is sponsored by Rep. Tom Kuhn (R-Troy) and Rep. Brenda Carter (D-Pontiac) in the House, and Sen. Jeremy Moss (D-Southfield) in the Senate.

"We must find a process to ensure that any potential handoff between schools is verified with written confirmation to ensure no children are lost in the future," Bouchard said. "I greatly appreciate the bipartisan legislative effort to change the school code to prevent such a tragedy going forward."

Dig deeper:

The children were found on Feb. 14 after the condo's landlord requested a welfare check. According to authorities, the landlord hadn't heard from Bryant since December, and rent hadn't been paid.

WARNING: The details of this story are disturbing.

Deputies arrived and found the home full of garbage – piled as high as four feet in some rooms. The rooms were also covered in mold and human waste. The toilet was overflowing, and the bathtub was full of feces.

The children survived on food that was dropped off on the front porch each week by either their mother or a stranger.

But they had no access to toilet paper or personal hygiene items. The sheriff said they were unfamiliar with personal hygiene and didn't even know how to flush a toilet.

They had also not attended school since she left them and instead passed time by watching TV or playing games. The sheriff said the girls had not been outside in several years.

The boy slept on a mattress on the floor, but the two girls slept on pizza boxes.

According to deputies, neighbors were unaware that children lived in the home and had never seen them. They said they had seen their mother at the home each month.

The kids were all wearing soiled clothing with matted hair and toenails so long that it was difficult to walk.

What's next:

Bryant was arrested and charged with three counts of first-degree child abuse. She's currently being held in the Oakland County Jail on a $250 million bond.

She is scheduled to be back in court March 4 for a motion hearing.

The children are currently with a family member.

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