2 First Student employees pulled from Saint Louis Public School routes after leaving 10-year-old with Down syndrome unsupervised at home
ST. LOUIS (KMOV.com) — A local mother said her 10-year-old boy, who depends on assistance to do basic things every day was left helpless after a bus driver dropped him off with no parent to supervise him.
Luckily, Kristian Stokes’ son was ok, but for 30 minutes, she was terrified.
“I didn’t know where my child was,” she said.
Stoke’s son is a fourth grader at Gateway Michael Elementary and lives with Down syndrome.
“My child is not able to verbalize his words, can’t speak for himself and really needs to be supervised at all times,” she said.
On Tuesday, the bus he rides from school did not show-up between 3 p.m. and 3:15 p.m. as usual.
Stoke’s other child needed to be picked up from school, and she wasn’t aware of where her son’s bus was.
“I had to pick my daughter up from her school, which she has to be picked up at 4 o’clock, which is around the corner,” Stokes said.
She learned, after making several calls, the bus did arrive late- while she was picking up her daughter.
The bus driver and monitor who was on the bus found that no one was there, put the boy inside his home with no one inside.
He went downstairs to the laundry room, and when Stokes returned she didn’t know he’d come home.
She called the bus company and her son’s principal.
The principal, Stokes says, told her the fourth-grader was walked inside the home because the door was open.
“She let me know that was unnacceptable and that should not have happened,” Stokes said.
But she couldn’t find her son, even after checking upstairs and calling her family. Because the boy is non-verbal, she didn’t know he was just feet away in the basement.
“I texted my niece and brother who live with me. I asked them if they picked him up, took him with them and did not let me know,” she said. “I got responses from them, that ‘s a no, they were at work.”
Then mom walked downstairs to the laundry room where she found her son.
“I was relieved but upset at the same time, panicked still because of the bleach, detergent and all kinds of stuff down here. I do not know what he’s gotten into.”
He appears to be ok, but Stokes believes what happened to her son underscores a consistent problem with bus company First Student.
“A lack of training, not paying attention to what they were supposed to be doing, it was negligence,” she said.
Stokes wants the bus driver and monitor fired.
News 4 reached out to St. Louis Public Schools and First Student. Both confirm her story of events and agree procedure was not followed.
In separate statements, both tell News 4 the driver and monitor are no longer driving routes for St. Louis Public Schools.
“The driver and monitor did not follow our protocol of hand-to-hand drop-off. Both have been removed from district routes. We have been in touch with the student’s family and thankful [the child] is fine.”
-Jay Brock
First Student spokesperson