On the first day of school in Prince George’s County, several students who rode the bus were dropped off at the wrong locations or arrived home late. In one case, a pre-kindergarten student was left at the wrong stop with a Telemundo44 reporter, who then called the little boy’s mother.
At 15th Avenue and Kanawha Street in Langley Park on Monday afternoon, Telemundo44 saw children get off a bus from Cool Spring Elementary School. Both parents and children got upset when they didn't see their family members.
One little girl who got off the bus cried after she didn't see her mom or dad. A neighbor approached her and took her back to the bus until her father arrived.
Another boy, a pre-K student named Francisco, was also alone after getting off the bus. Reporter Dario Lopez-Capera told the bus driver, and the driver said to put the child back on the bus.
That's when the driver found a note in the boy's backpack with contact information and asked Lopez-Capera to call the boy's mother. The driver continued on their route before the mother arrived.
Lopez-Capera was able to contact the child's mother, Angelica Rivera, who ran over to pick up her son. She said it was the first time he'd gone to school, and that he'd gotten off at the wrong stop by mistake.
"That's dangerous too. That's the fault of the buses, because he has to be there, not here ... I don't understand why they left him here," Rivera said in Spanish. "I'm going to report this. I have to report it, because he shouldn't get off here. [His stop] is up there, because there, I was waiting for my baby, and he didn't appear."
In a statement sent to Telemundo44, the communications director for Prince George's County Schools said students' safe arrival at school and home is a top priority. She said they are working to solve problems that tend to accompany the first few weeks of school, as drivers and students adjust to new bus routes.
Prince George's County Schools later released a second statement that said:
"Parents are expected to accompany preschool and kindergarten students to and from bus stops. When preschool or kindergarten students are not met at the bus stop by a parent, neighbor, sibling or other caretaker, or when a situation appears to be unsafe, policy is for the bus driver to return the student to school."
Francisco's case wasn't the only worrying one on the county's first day of school. Other parents waited an hour for their children to get home.
