PATCHOGUE, N.Y. (AP)  -- Officials are promising to add more hallway monitors after a 6-year-old boy left his Long Island elementary school unnoticed and wandered alone to a highway service road.

Officials say the boy apparently meandered out of Medford Elementary School Monday morning after finding his kindergarten classroom empty. He had come to school late, and his class was an assembly.

Passers-by spotted him walking alongside a Sunrise Highway service road about a half-hour later. Bystander Annamae Russo said he was crying and anxiously chewing on his jacket.

Police took the boy home to his mother.

Patchogue-Medford School District Superintendent Michael Mostow said the school will add two more hall monitors, for a total of four.

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