Michigan Student Left on School Bus for Hours

June 18, 2024

File photo of a child about to board a school bus.

The mother of a 9-year-old boy is furious after her son was left sleeping inside a school for hours last week, reported Fox 2.

The incident reportedly occurred on June 5, when Tashonda Bennett said her 9-year-old son was found on the bus around 9:30 p.m. by his older brother. He usually gets off the bus at 3:45 p.m.

According to the news report, Bennett explained that her 9-year-old son, who attends Detroit Service-Learning Academy, got on the school bus on Wednesday morning with his 14-year-old sister.

The boy reportedly made it to school and then got back on the bus to come home in the afternoon while his sister stayed at school for practice. Bennett had fallen asleep and did not realize her son was missing until 7 p.m.

Bennett began to call everyone, including her son’s bus driver, who told her that her son did not get on the bus. The bus driver claimed never knew the child was in the back of the bus sleeping, she said.

“If the bus driver had done his walk through, he would have seen the child asleep in the back of the bus,” added Bennett via the news article.

She called the school, police and her family to try and find her son. No one knew where her child was, until the child’s 16-year-old brother and grandmother found him sleeping on board the bus. boy’s brother reportedly opened the bus roof hatch and lifted the child out of the vehicle.

Detroit Police confirmed the sequence of events via the article. The community acted together in this situation to find the child.

Local news reporters reached out to the district to find out if the bus driver involved is on leave or still working, but an answer was not received at this report. safeThe district did issue a statement that an incident like this had never happened before and the matter was being addressed with the staff involved.