A 7-year-old child with autism was left on a school bus in Upstate New York for hours, according to a new report.
Latisha Griffin told WIVB that her grandson, Josiah, fell asleep on the bus Tuesday morning on his way to Public School 82 in Buffalo. He was still sleeping on the bus when it was taken to the bus terminal parking lot, and left alone there for hours, she said.
Josiah’s grandmother said he was located by a First Student bus terminal worker around 12:30 p.m. He sitting in the driver’s seat, banging on the windows to get an employee’s attention
Griffin said the boy was put on a different bus and brought to his school. She only found out about the incident from a manager at the bus terminal when he arrived safely at PS 82 around 1 p.m., but said she was never contacted by anyone at the school.
Griffin said she called the principal, who apologized but ultimately laid the blame on First Student. Her grandson hasn’t returned to school since the incident out of fear.
“I don’t feel like he’s safe with them,” Griffin said. “He keeps asking if they are going to leave him on the bus again… That’s kind of heartbreaking to deal with every morning to hear him asking me that.”
According to WIVB, First Student placed the bus driver and bus aide from Josiah’s bus on paid leave as the school bus company conducts an “internal review of the incident.”
“It is completely unacceptable that a BPS student was left on a First Student yellow bus,” a Buffalo Public Schools spokesperson said in a statement. “District officials met with First Student on the same day of the incident to voice the district’s concerns and disapproval and to help make sure this doesn’t happen again. Both the bus driver and bus aide involved in this unacceptable incident ignored multiple procedures in place to prevent this from happening. The school contacted the adult listed as the student’s contact.”