By Joe Whalen
In the shadow of a man twice her size, the little girl sporting braids and a plaid green skirt appeared vulnerable.
Much to the contrary, the child — a Queens Village Day School student participating in a seminar before a large gathering of parents and children on Oct. 4 — stood at the forefront of a program designed to empower children faced with the danger of abduction.
In an exercise conducted by Escape School instructor Martin Kasdan, the girl pretended she had gotten lost and that a stranger had been following her. Kasdan, playing the role of a preoccupied adult, ignored her cries for help.
So she latched onto his leg — a move that forced him to pay attention to her and take control of the situation.
“That’s what we’re trying to do: empower kids to make the right decisions,” said Kasdan.
The girl’s action highlighted one of more than 300 lessons taught in Escape School, a national child abduction prevention program founded in California eight years ago by former San Jose police officer Bob Stuber. Kasdan, the director of Schwartz Brothers-Jeffer Memorial Chapel in Forest Hills, received training in Escape School techniques from Stuber in 1997.
“Bob was close, I believe, to the Polly Klaas family out in California, and that deeply affected him,” Kasdan said of the 1993 murder of Klaas, a 12-year-old girl who was abducted from her home in Petaluma, Calif.
Schwartz Brothers-Jeffer is one of about 10 funeral homes in Queens that belong to Dignity Memorial Inc. — a North American affiliation of memorial service providers that sponsors Escape School. In the past five years, Kasdan has delivered an average of 50 seminars a year to children and their parents at schools in the tri-state area.
In 1970, shortly after Kasdan entered the funeral home business, he arranged the burial of a child who had been abducted and murdered.
“I hated doing that once, and I don’t ever want to do it again,” Kasdan said of the child’s funeral. “As soon as I heard that my company wanted to train me, I said, ‘Man, this is a natural.’”
His wife, Ardelle Kasdan, joined the Escape School team in 1999.
“It opens up dialogue,” Ardelle said of the seminar. “Parents are the best teachers. When you know your child, you know how to get through to them. You also know on what level your child is going to learn certain safety techniques.”
James Howard, chairman of the board of directors at Queens Village Day School, learned of Escape School from a feature on the television show “America’s Most Wanted.” He went to the program’s Web site (www.escapeschool.com), bought its literature and videotapes, evaluated the materials and then arranged to have the seminar presented at the day-care and after-school center on Jamaica Avenue.
“We were very impressed. We had a big turnout, and I spoke to a couple of the parents who thought it was very informative,” Howard said. “Hopefully, the word will spread from the parents who were here to other parents.”
The presentation served as part of the day school’s Child Abduction Prevention Program, a series of monthly assemblies and seminars with skits and dramas focused on raising awareness of a national dilemma.
“CAPP is a newly implemented curriculum for our academic school year,” said Vernetta Brown, the day school’s owner and executive director. “So Escape School is just one phase of that.”
Founded in 1984, Queens Village Day School received its charter from the state Board of Education in 1988. It is licensed to educate 339 children from 6 months to 12 years in age. A new pre-kindergarten program provides 2 1/2 hours of free care for children born in 1998, with the rest of the day offered at a reduced rate.
For more information about the school and all of its programs, please call (718) 479-5926.
Reach reporter Joe Whalen by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 146.
