The Kansas school bus driver is no longer employed by the school district after the kindergartener was left on a bus for more than six hours on October 28.
The family of a kindergartener in Kansas is stunned after their son was left alone on a school bus for hours without their knowledge.
A local Kansas news station, KWCH, said that a 5-year-old boy in the Hoxie School District in northwest Kansas fell asleep on the way to school and was left on a bus for hours during the school day.
The event happened in the early hours of October 28, according to the news source. The driver dropped off the other kids at school and then drove home. He did not know that the boy had not gotten off the bus.
The boy, whose name has not been made public, slept for hours in the bus while it was parked in the man’s driveway.
KWCH said the driver found the 5-year-old still sitting in his seat six hours after he got on the bus.
Lea Meitl, the boy’s grandmother, told KWCH on Thursday, November 14: “How could that happen?” “There are three people getting off the bus.” There are three people getting on the bus. It is not hard to understand.”
Meitl told the news source that she was worried about her grandson’s safety and asked school bus drivers to be more careful.
“I cried. “I just kept wondering what was going through his little mind,” she said, adding that she was glad the weather was not too hot or too cold, which could have put her grandson in danger.
It does not take long to walk to the back of the bus and then back to the front to look for kids, she said.
KWCH was told by the Hoxie School District that the bus driver is no longer working for the company. People asked the district for a comment, but they did not answer right away.
People asked the Hoxie police for information, but they did not answer right away.
This is the second time this year that a student has been left behind on a school bus after the trip to school in the morning was over. In July, Rhode Island police said a 4-year-old boy was left in an empty minibus by accident.
The student was “left unattended on a North Kingstown School Department bus after the driver and monitors completed their morning route,” according to the superintendent of schools in North Kingstown, Rhode Island.
People at the time got a copy of the police report that said the child “did not come into the school, [and] Fishing Cove Elementary Staff marked [him] absent and believed he did not come to school.”
The report also said that the child was still in the back of the bus as the driver and monitor drove from the elementary school to the transportation parking lot.
The boy was “able to exit the bus and was subsequently located by town employees at the Municipal Office Building a short distance away.” The bus driver and safety monitors were fired, but no one was charged with a crime.