Special needs child left on school bus

An elementary school special needs child was left on a school bus, forgotten about by everyone, even the bus driver. Fortunately another driver found the boy before he was potentially left overnight at the school bus yard, but how could this happen?

While most kids were at home playing Monday afternoon, a little boy was sitting on a school bus alone and unnoticed by the bus driver and trainer on board as they parked the bus and left for the night.

“How could they forget a child on the bus? I don’t understand that,” said parent Victoria Diaz.

“They should check the bus before they get out of the bus, they should every seat, under the seat,” said Alejandra Miranda.

Luckily another driver noticed the special needs boy and came to his aid.

‘He just happened to be walking in the yard, ‘Hey why is that kid still on the bus?’, said Coachella Valley Unified School District Superintendent Darryl Adams. “And immediately did the right thing and brought the kid in, and made sure the kid was OK, notified the parent and immediately launched an investigation.”

The boy, described as 10 or 11 years old, attends John Kelley Elementary School. He had been sitting alone for a half an hour.

“It’s really dangerous especially in this heat,’ said Miranda.

“What went wrong? Something went wrong. How can a bus driver forget him?” said Diaz.

“He wasn’t asleep, he was awake, but he is one of our students and a special needs student, and so our immediate concern was to make sure he is okay and reach out to the parent,” said Adams. “We talked to them about what happened. As a result of that, we immediately placed new procedures in place to ensure that drivers check their bus and we have also ordered additional training for all of our drivers to ensure student safety is the number one priority.”

Victoria Diaz says she has no choice but to trust her kids will come home safe.

“I have a child that comes from the bus, he leaves at eight in the morning and every day he gets home at 7:30 p.m. everyday and I’m waiting for him, there is either a new bus driver or he got lost or something or another, but we don’t have another choice, I just wait for him,” said Diaz.

“We want to ensure parents that their students are safe with us, we treat the students as if they were our own and that can’t happen it’s unacceptable.” said Adams.

Both the bus driver and trainer who were responsible for the child have been placed on administrative leave while the school district looks into the matter.