Child (momentarily) left on school bus

[Busybus]

My 5 year old gets a school bus. It's a private company with a driver and bus assistant. DC started getting the bus at the start of the year. Its so convenient and generally we have had nothing to say about it but good things.

Two weeks ago on the first day back, I went to collect DS from the bus. When they pulled up, the usual children got off and as I waited for my child, the doors closed and the bus drove off. I had to run after the bus shouting at them to stop. The stopped at the bottom of the street and let my child off. No big deal -not great but these things happen. I laughed it off and that was that.

Yesterday, my daughter was upset not long after we got home. She said that in the morning, when they had all got to school, everyone got off the bus except her. She couldn't unbuckle her seatbelt and the bus started to move off, so she shouted 'no, no, no!' so the bus driver would hear her. Luckily he did. Going by what my child said, the bus had started pulling off but hadn't got very far. He unbuckled her seatbelt and helped her off the bus.

When she told me I was a bit annoyed for her but glad she had got off the bus ok. The more and more I thought about it, the more upset I felt. I woke up several times last night thinking about her shouting 'no, no, no!' and how she must have felt.

I spoke to the assistant this morning as I wanted to hear her side of story. My DC tends to be pretty good at remembering things accurately but at the end of the day, she is 5 so it's important to get all the facts. The assistant didn't deny it. In fact, her response was 'yeah but the bus hadn't got very far...I'll keep her beside me today'.

Something about it didn't sit right with me. I told one of the other mums and I ended up getting a bit upset. The other mum reminded me that situations like these can end up tragically and it dawned on me that while my child was OK in the end, who knows what else might have happened, and this doesn't take away from how scared she was.

I then told DC's teacher who took it very seriously and passed it on. I wasn't emotional, just wrote the facts as I had them and explained my concerns. The bus company has been informed and said it won't happen again. I didn't want to make a big deal about it but my instincts are saying that I need to protect my child (and other kids too). However my instinct when it comes to my kids can't always be trusted, as I can be a bit on the over protective side.

I'm picking my child up from the bus soon and I'm dreading seeing the assistant who most likely has been reprimanded for something she didn't seem to think was a big deal. I'm not sure how to handle it. Human error happens, everyone has made mistakes or overlooked things so I don't want heads to roll. I just feel sorry for my little girl and so many different scenarios have gone through my mind.

Yanbu: the bus assistant should have done a head count and final sweep of the bus and not to do so was dangerous. You were right to escalate it.

Yabu: everyone makes mistakes and it was just one of those things, DC was fine and you should have left it at that.

Wtf is the assistant actually doing! Because not their actual job, by the sounds of it.

Don’t worry about upsetting the bus assistant - they’re not there to be your friend, they’re there to ensure your child’s safety and they’re not doing that!

You are your child’s advocate - don’t worry about what the bus staff think of you. Not exactly the same situation but my disabled daughter was left at college by her taxi driver once, as he hadn’t checked she was on the minibus. He finally went back to get her after the college had to get the local authority to intervene (he told the taxi firm he wasn’t going back for her). When they finally got home I made it quite clear what I thought of him and his total disregard for my daughters safety and well-being and made a complaint to the taxi firm. I didn’t give a shit what he thought about me. I was furious.

A little girl died in Doha a few weeks ago. Nothing is worth the risk, the attendant should be fired.

Yes I've spoken to my daughter about looking out for her stop and getting ready etc. However she just turned 5 last month and she just can't focus on her surroundings like that. She does often fall asleep on the way home and the assistant has had to wake her a few times. She is very petite for her age and nobody was able to see her struggling with her seatbelt. Am always trying to get my kids to be responsible but at the end of the day, kids do need help with these things.

You were right to raise it, now you just move on.

In the UK it would be catastrophising to think school would just assume she is sick. They would contact you before 10am if she did not appear and you had not registered her as sick. It might be different where you are of course.

Would it be worth putting an airtag or similar in her bag?

YANBU

What is the point in the assistant, if she is not making sure all children get on and off the bus properly??

What on earth is she doing instead? Daydreaming? On her phone? Chatting to the driver??

She deserves to be reprimanded. If this keeps happening maybe they should find someone who can actually do the job.

Never heard of this either. The buses that do my school run do a high school run after so a snoozy. Five yo would be spotted. As a parent I have the number for the bus company and of the driver. Once they failed to drop my then five yo off and brought him back at the end of the run. The drivers excuse was that he didn’t tell him to stop. The council pulled the contract and it went to another firm due to other complaints pretty sharpish so it never happened again.

Yes I am just going to move on from it. Thank you for all of your messages. I just wanted to know I was doing the right thing and not just flying off the handle.

Fwiw I don't care what the bus assistant thinks of me or her feelings, I was just trying to make things less awkward at pick up/drop off but ultimately she was wrong and my kid definitely comes first.

The first was only realised because the OP pursued the bus shouting. By the sounds of it, the assistant had left the bus by the time of the second incident, and if there is a bus assistant then the driver's job is just the driving.
The assistant doesn't necessarily need a formal reprimand, but they do need their duties spelling out - they must check that the right children get on and off at each stop, and that each is collected by the right adult.

I will admit to having run a coach trip where a child didn't get off at the right stop, and I didn't notice. However they were 13 year olds, and it didn't occur to me that they might not know which town they had joined the bus at. I ended up waiting with him for about an hour at the later of the two stops while his mum tried to find her way to us.

Why didn't she get off the bus in time? Presumably because she's 5!

This. The assistant has ONE JOB for goodness sake. If they can't get children on and off the bus safely, wtf are they there for. This is a safeguarding issue and should be taken very seriously.

@lannistunut WTF? I have never heard of this and genuinely interested to understand more - do their parents not report them as not being at home?

???? it happens at the start of the day. So kid picked up, does not get off bus for whatever reason - playing sillybuggers and hiding under a seat, fell asleep on drive etc. Gets left on bus and no one notices, it’s missed that they are not signed in at preschool or school and travel on the bus so presumed they are at home sick or not in that day for whatever reason. By time someone realises, or worse case end of day and they open up bus to load kids back on if only doing school runs the kid is generally dead unfortunately as the interior of the bus is several degrees higher than the temp outside (bus acts as oven) or at n a bad way if not caught early as their little brains bake. It’s not just kids being left on buses, we also have several deaths on kids accidentally being left in cars. You may wonder how but it’s easy and nearly happened to me. I was going the preschool run one day, went on autopilot, kid was silent, I pulled into work and kid said ‘aren’t I going to preschool today’, got the shock of my life. If they had of fallen asleep I wouldn’t have noticed and they would have been dead when I returned at end of work likely even in winter here let alone summer where an hour would do it. After that I ALWAYS put my handbag in the back at a child’s feet if I had any in the car with me.

Busy now but I can get stats later as we do have a few go each year by being left on buses and mistakenly in parents cars.

Thanks for explaining @HoppingPavlova - I was aware of car tragedies of course but not school bus ones, very scary!

That's awful. If a child doesn't turn up to school and they don't hear from a parent, there should be no assuming, especially if they are on the bus!
The whole school sounds way too lax. If a child isn't at school they should be contacting a parent to find out why. Very odd.

Here even high schools contact you by 20 if your child hasn't registered and you haven't called to give a reason. Derailing the thread slightly but you'd think it would be standard practice everywhere - especially in places where tragedies resulting from not doing so appear common

Don’t overthink it, doesn’t matter what the assistant thinks of you, you were right to raise it and I think most other parents would have too. Hold your head up high. If you don’t look out for your child and fight their corner, who else will?

The bus company need controls and checks in place as a minimum, yanbu

What country are you in? How did this happen?

This reminds me of an incident involving DSD (who lived permanently with me and her dad) when she was 6 years old.
I was waiting for her at the drop off point for the school coach (not public transport). Everybody got off apart from her and the coach drove on. I was slightly panicked but thought, "maybe she missed the coach" as she could be a bit of a dawdler. I got back home where my mum was waiting with my 6 month old baby. I told mum what had happened then rang the school to see if DSD was there. What I got told put the fear of God in me " no, she's not here, she got on the coach". The school said they would ring the coach company to find out where she had got off at (we were the last stop). After 15 minutes, the longest of my life, I had a call back to say that DSD was at the coach company. It seems that the driver (there was no assistant), had failed to see her when he looked in the rear view mirror before pulling off, as she was next to a window and so the seat in front had hidden her. The only bit of luck was that it was the 1 day of the week my mum visited us and so she was able to drive the 10 miles to the depot to pick DSD up. DSD was fine and apparently the driver was beside himself that he had missed her. The coach company then put in a rule that the drivers walked up through the coach at each stop and made sure that the children who got off at each stop were actually off and at the last stop, a check to make sure the coach was empty before driving off.
30 years on and it's become one of those "do you remember when?" moments that always raises a bit of a chuckle, but I will never forget the utter panic I felt that day.

If secondary school this would be a non issue but for a five year old this is unacceptable.

what is the job of the assistant? Surely partly to make sure all the children safely get on and off the bus!

YANBU. Common sense surely dictates that you keep a close eye on the little ones in this type of situation and make sure that they all get off.

I would be furious ,my son is disabled and goes to a special school, and has transport obviously it's different, but some PA ,s have been fantastic ,others not so much ,I had to tell one last year not to open the bus door untill I got their as my son has no sense of danger and would just run into a moving car etc .

Good for your DD for shouting up! The assistant isn't doing their job properly. This needs to be addressed, so of course you should raise it. The bus company would soon be having words with you (quite rightly) if your child mis-behaved on the bus. I would want to know what was being out in place to make sure this doesn't happen again.

Jeez, nobody died. And they've assured you it won't happen again. YABU.

But it's happened twice. In a week.

Mountain. Molehill.

Why would you give this a second thought

A 5 year old couldn’t loosen their seatbelt, they shouted for the driver to help, they got the help they needed. Zero harm done.

Should the driver unbuckle all the kids seatbelts as a matter of course?

TBH you should think yourself very lucky you have a school bus that picks kids up at their door and ferries them to school - I’ve never heard of this

Some people on here need some actual problems instead of all the entitled middle class “first world problem” shit concerning their little princes/princesses