WACO, Texas (KWTX/Gray News) — School officials in Texas say an investigation is underway after a student with autism was reportedly left on a bus for several hours.
Shannon Jennings Hernandez says her 11-year-old son Isaak has severe autism, but never misses a day of school because he loves having perfect attendance.
However, he didn’t make it to class on Monday after being accidentally left on the school bus that morning.
“It was determined that the student had been left behind after the morning route and had remained on the bus for the duration of the school day,” Connally Independent School District shared in a statement.
According to Isaak’s mother, Connally’s director of transportation called her that afternoon to let her know what happened, as her son wasn’t in class the entire day.
“He let me know that he was OK and that he was hungry,” Hernandez said. “They made sure to give him something to eat and then they let the nurse check him.”
The boy’s mother says she was never alerted about her son being absent or about the situation until the call after 3:30 p.m.
The district shared that attendance was not tracked as usual that day because the usual teacher was absent.
According to the district’s website, attendance is taken every day at 10 a.m. Hernandez says normally the school will let parents know if their child is absent.
The mother is thankful her son is OK, but says the outcome could have been much worse.
“The weather could have been Texas usual weather,” Hernandez said. “He could have gotten off the bus and wandered.”
She says there needs to be more communication between schools and parents.
“I was terrified because at some point, I knew there was a way to alert them sooner. There has to be something better if that’s where we’re sending our kids,” Hernandez said.
Isaak returned to school on Tuesday, but his mother says he still has questions about why or what happened.
“This morning he was questioning … a lot of questions on the bus,” she said. “He was nervous about being left again. He’s like, ‘I don’t ever want to be left on the bus again, mom.’”
In a statement on Monday, the district said it is working closely with Texas Rural Student Transportation, the company that handles the school’s transportation needs, to determine what failures led to Isaak being left on the bus.
“The district has taken steps to self-report the incident to appropriate oversight agencies so that any additional investigations and/or audits of our practices can be conducted,” the school district said.
School officials said the driver and the bus aide involved have also been placed on administrative leave until further notice.
