MEDINA, Ohio — Parents of a Medina County school district have reached out to News 5 for help, saying their elementary-aged children have been dropped off at the wrong times and wrong locations when school is let out.
Sarah Hamlin, a parent at Buckeye Local Schools, said she gets nervous every time she sends her 5-year-old daughter, Lyra, off to Buckeye Primary.
The first incident that concerned her was back in February when Lyra got dropped off from the bus but wasn’t acting like herself.
“She came home and she was complaining of a headache. I thought okay, a headache, she had a long day but she wasn’t acting right and as a parent, you know how your kid acts,” said Hamlin.
She said she took her to the emergency room and Lyra had a concussion, but Hamlin said when she asked the elementary school leaders what happened, they didn’t know.
“My child was fine when I sent her to school that morning and she gets off the bus and she clearly is not acting right,” she said.
It raised a red flag, but she was even more concerned earlier this month when Lyra, who was supposed to be dropped off via the bus at daycare but, instead, was dropped off at home.
“The bus driver just left her, a 5-year-old. My neighbor found her and called me and was like ‘hey, where is your daughter supposed to be at?’” she said.
Hamlin claims the school called it a mix-up and put in place a safety checklist for Lyra’s transportation, but she said this isn’t the first time it has happened to a student.
Genesha Lyons, a Buckeye Local Schools mom, said her 6-year-old daughter Prestige was also dropped off at her stop with no adults or siblings around, something that isn’t safety protocol.
“It was only because by the grace of God that another parent took my daughter and brought her home. She walked my daughter home because my daughter didn’t know where she was going,” she said. “What if my child was released to a predator and not a parent who cared and brought my child home?”
Lyons said she wrote a letter to the school, saying only Prestige’s older siblings or herself should be present when Prestige is let off the bus but claims, sometimes, school officials don’t even know what bus Prestige gets on.
She said there have been multiple incidents where she had to call the school in a panic asking where her daughter is because she didn’t get off at the time she was scheduled to be released.
“They said, ‘no, she did get off the bus.’ I said ‘no, her sisters are out there and they said that she didn’t get off the bus,’ and then they said ‘oh, well let us call and see what’s going on give us a few minutes and we will call you back,’” said Lyons.
She said school officials told her Prestige missed the first bus that she is typically on and got on the wrong bus.
“How could she miss the bus? Isn’t it your job to make sure she gets on the bus? She is a Kindergartener,” she said.
She and Hamlin said they believe there need to be more organization and safety protocols in place.
News 5 reached out to Buckeye Local Schools superintendent Jeff Harrison about the parents’ complaints. He said he knows of one bus incident the district is investigating where safety protocol was not followed. He added corrective action and additional protocols have been put in place.
He said he isn’t aware of any other investigations into transportation issues but added that any parent who has additional concerns to immediately report it to the school principal, his office, or the transportation department so that it can be investigated and handled.
Harrison said student safety is the district’s number one priority and it doesn’t matter if it is on a bus, in a classroom or on school grounds— adding if and when a situation arises, they act swiftly to correct it.
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