Editor's note: The charge of endangering children was later dismissed as a part of a plea agreement. Baptiste plead guilty to one count of disorderly conduct, which was reduced from an original charge of endangering children, and was ordered to pay a $100 fine. 

 

A Boardman woman is scheduled to appear in court Thursday to answer allegations that she left her two children home alone while she attended a class at Youngstown State University.

Police charged 26-year-old Sara Baptiste with two counts of child endangering after some workmen found her 8-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son wandering outside their families duplex on the 300 block of Shields Road on January 23rd.

The children, one of whom was barefoot, were being held in the arms of firefighters when officers arrived.

Reached by phone, police say Baptiste told them that she leaves the children home at 6 a.m. to attend class at YSU on Mondays and Tuesdays.  The children are supposed to get on the school bus at 7:30 a.m.

According to police, when they were called to investigate the wandering children it was already 9:45 a.m., nearly four hours after their mother would have left.

Baptiste told officers that she gets home before the bus drops her children off at home later in the day.

After finding clean, dry clothes for the children and dropping them off at school, officers contacted Mahoning County Children’s Services.

Police were called back to the duplex on Wednesday by a relative who said they were getting no response from anyone inside the home.

An officer says in the police report that a child’s voice could be heard coming from the apartment and the mother’s car was parked outside.

Concerned about the welfare of the children, an officer reached through a broken window to open the door and went inside where they found the two children and their mother.

Asking if they had a warrant to search her home, officers told Baptiste they had a warrant for her arrest.

Baptiste was placed in handcuffs and booked into the county jail. A hearing is scheduled Thursday afternoon in Boardman Court.

The children have been turned over to the care of a relative.