With the first day of school often comes chaos and confusion, but one Middleton mom says her son's first day of kindergarten could have ended in tragedy. According to Elaine Brown, her five-year-old son was put on the wrong school bus.
"It's the school's responsibility to make sure he gets on the right bus, and they put him on the wrong bus,” Brown said. “He could have gotten hit by a car, he could've gotten kidnapped, I mean, God knows where he could be right now if my daughter didn't find him.”
Elaine said goodbye to her son in the morning, under the impression he’d finish the day at daycare, dropped off by the school district. Instead, five-year-old Greyson was dropped off on the side of an intersection in front of the family’s subdivision.
“He was scared, he was crying and shaking, and he kept telling the bus driver that this wasn't his spot, he was supposed to go to daycare,” Elaine said.
Her main concern was not only would her son have no way of knowing how to make it to their house, but no one was home, which is why she says he was supposed to be dropped off at his nearby daycare.
Luckily, Elaine says her older daughter, walking home from middle school at the time, was the first to find him, crying, standing on the side of the busy street while the rest of the children crossed. But like any mom, it’s the "what ifs" that still leave her shaken.
I was angry, I was upset and I was scared because if my daughter wasn't here and didn't show up, I mean this could be a huge, much bigger case than it ended up being,” Brown said.
When Elaine got home she made some concerned calls, but says she was told buses need to keep moving to stay on schedule.
“I don’t see a schedule being more important than our children's safety,” she said.
She received an apology from the bussing company, which told 6 On Your Side this will not happen again. But now she just hopes the district will take her concerns seriously.
“We're a world of technology right now. They have cell phones, they have radios they have walkie talkies; there's no reason why they couldn't have said, 'Hey this kid says he doesn’t go here, can we find out where I should take him?'”
