Parents and former parents of Arnold Elementary School students had questions and concerns Friday regarding a sexual assault on a kindergarten boy at the school.

Police arrested a 27-year-old man Thursday afternoon on suspicion of felony first-degree sexual assault of a child. He allegedly hid in a school bathroom until the boy came in, convinced him to go into a supply area and assaulted him.

Some parents who found out about the sexual assault when they picked up their children from school Friday, said they were shocked and angry.

“My heart goes out to that poor baby and his family,” Diane Thornton, 42, said after picking up her first-grade son.

“I’m shocked that someone could walk off the street and do this. It’s really a scary thing. I’ve already told (Principal Kathy Honeycutt) my son might not be here (next week).

“I’d love to pull him out and send him to another school, but could it happen there? I just need to think.”

Parents and grandparents questioned the school’s security, particularly why the intruder wasn’t followed the entire time he was in the building.

And Patty Mundorf, 33, said she wished a letter that went home with students on Thursday had been more specific.

“It grosses me out,” said Mundorf, whose daughters are in second and fifth grade. “It makes me sick. I’m just wondering, how can that happen? It worries me.”

Mike Collins, 55, said school officials should have followed the man and escorted him from the building, rather than wait for police.

“You trust your kids to the school, and they need to take care of them,” said Collins, whose first-grade granddaughter attends Arnold.

Victor Garcia, 32, whose fourth-grader attends Arnold, shared that sentiment.

“If it’s inside the school, what can happen outside?” he said.

Glen Merrick, 41, who has a first-grade son at Arnold, said he planned to talk to his wife and other parents before talking to school officials about the assault.

“Things like this happen, but it shouldn’t happen in school,” Merrick said.

He said he didn’t understand how a stranger could walk into a bathroom in the building without a school official confronting him.

Jeanette Case, 34, picked up her fifth-grade son Friday. She said she only knew what her son told her Thursday, that the school went into a Code Red, which means students are locked in classrooms for their protection.

“I thought they handled it well,” she said, adding that she heard they called police and locked down the school promptly.

Terry Schwimmer, an Arnold parent for 11 years, said Arnold is a good school with a dedicated staff. He has concerns about security in every school, he said.

“But I don’t know what the answer would be. You can have a police officer at every entrance, but where is the budget for it?” he asked. “I don’t think there’s any easy answers.”

Schwimmer, who is a New York native, said children’s safety is always a worry.

“Bad people know how to go where good people are,” he said.

He said security in most places is probably a little less stringent than it could be. Predators know how to watch children, and sometimes do it better than parents or teachers, he said.

People in Nebraska are perhaps more trusting than they should be, he said.

The father, whose youngest son moved on to sixth grade at Irving Middle School this year, questioned the idea of a kindergartner going to the bathroom alone.

Arnold has some kindergarten rooms with bathrooms inside the rooms and some without. There should at least be a buddy system in place for young children who must go to bathrooms outside the classroom, Schwimmer said.

“When it comes to small children going to the bathroom, they shouldn’t be going alone,” he said.

Jeff Schwebke, a parent whose children are now in college, has lived in the Arnold area for years and serves on the LPS student housing task force.

He said he knows schools can’t be made completely inaccessible to the public. Locking all but the front entrance to a school is a common practice, but not feasible at all schools.

The man arrested Thursday at the school lived in a group home nearly 11 miles from Arnold. Schwebke, who is active with the Arnold Neighborhood Association, said many Arnold residents have had concerns with oversight at group homes. There is one group home next to the school and another about a block away, he said, but he knows of no specific problems with those homes.

Reach JoAnne Young at 473-7228 or jyoung@journalstar.com.

Reach Josh Swartzlander at 473-7120 or jswartzlander@journalstar.com.