Wake County 3rd grader doesn't come home on bus
RALEIGH (WTVD) -- After waiting forty minutes at a neighborhood bus stop, the mother of an eight-year-old Raleigh girl gives up and goes home.
Priscilla McKoy, her stomach in knots, calls her daughter's school Fuller Elementary. A staffer there tells her the bus left on time and should have been there long ago.
McKoy explained how she felt, "I'm anxious and I'm panicking. I'm like okay, school doesn't know where she's at, I don't know where she's at. I didn't know if there had been an accident. I didn't know what had gone on."
McKoy told ABC11 she called two different numbers for the transportation department, including one designated for missing bus riders, but each time got voice mail. She said no one from transportation ever called her back.
She called her husband at work. Usually calm, he was panicking too. Soon, almost two hours had gone by.
"I just began to cry. I didn't know what else to do. I didn't have anyone else to call," McKoy said.
All of a sudden her phone rang. It was the mother of another child who was on the bus.
"She says, 'Hi, I just wanted to let you know your daughter's at my house."
McKoy raced to the apartments almost two miles from her house. Her daughter, a second grade summer enrichment student, told her the bus driver asked where she lived.
"The bus driver said, 'I don't know where that is. It's not on my sheet. Sit down.' And so she said she sat down and at that point, another child on the bus said, 'She can get off on our stop,' and the bus driver said okay," McKoy told ABC11.
McKoy said she finally talked with a transportation official Tuesday, after having to go to the office in person.
"He told me that it was important that I talk with my daughter and let her know to only get off at her stop no matter what the bus driver says. My daughter is only eight years old and I said as an eight year old shouldn't have this responsibility."
McKoy said she plans to protest until she is assured it won't happen again.
"I want to be sure that this doesn't happen to any other children. It's not fair for a parent to have to go through this. As an attorney myself, in private practice, I see day-to-day how differently this could have turned out. A lot of children don't come home."
Wake County School System officials told ABC11 they are investigating if what the child told her mother is true. But it appears the root of the problem was a substitute driver, which isn't uncommon on almost any route. That's why they say parents of children in the second grade or older should make sure their children can recognize their bus stop and know where to get off. And, they add, if a driver says he isn't familiar with the stop, then the child should ask the driver to call a parent or return the child to their school.
