A West Palm Beach mother is frustrated after her 5-year-old son has been dropped off at the wrong bus stop several days in a row.
“I’m scared because there’s predators out here, he could get hit by a car, someone can kidnap him, anything can happen to him,” said mother Vulayta McCall.
McCall said the only way to describe it; terrifying.
“It’s like oh my god where’s my child at,” said McCall.
Her 5-year-old son is in kindergarten. He has a name tag attached to his backpack that tells which bus he is supposed to be taking. However, after the first incident, she met with the school and they decided to add the cross streets to the card to avoid confusion. However, Wednesday was the third day her son was found wandering the neighborhood by himself.
“The bus driver himself even had to drive around looking for him and I was running around looking for him on the phone with the police trying to describe him out of breathe crying don’t know where he is,” said his sister Doris McCall.
Doris McCall waits at the stop every afternoon. The first time he didn’t get off she questioned the driver and eventually found him thanks to a neighbor.
“He looked in his book bag and his agenda has the emergency numbers and he called my daughter and says he has Jair,” said McCall.
McCall said she was frustrated and went to the elementary school to find out how this could happen. She said the school was understanding and assured her it wouldn’t happen again. Yet, it did.
“Now I got to keep leaving my job to find where my child is every time they drop him off at a different spot,” said McCall.
Most of all McCall is worried about her son’s safety at only 5 years old.
“That small window of time anything can happen,” said McCall.
NewsChannel 5 took McCall's concerns to the district. A spokeswoman immediately called back with a solution; a new bus and stop closer to the family's home.
The Palm Beach County School District said for any family with a similar issue to make sure you walk the route with your student so that they are familiar with the area, also tell them not to get off at a stop unless they see a familiar face (parent or guardian picking them up) and if there is an older friend on board that gets off on the stop to use the buddy system.
