HOUSTON \u2013 A Houston mother is demanding accountability after she says her 4-year-old daughter was mistakenly placed into the wrong car during school dismissal at Bastian Elementary School.<\/p>\n
The incident happened Thursday afternoon during car rider pickup. The child is a Pre-K student.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was placed in somebody\u2019s car and taken to their home,\u201d said Daija Spencer. \u201cI don\u2019t know what to think. I don\u2019t know what happened to my child. I don\u2019t know how long she was gone. I don\u2019t know anything at all,\u201d Spencer said.<\/p>\n
According to Houston Independent School District, an employee mistakenly placed the student into the wrong vehicle along with a group of other students.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the parent who was driving was leaving the campus, they realized what happened, and drove around the school to return the student,\u201d the district said in a statement. \u201cThe student was safely and immediately returned and remained with Bastian staff in the front office while the student\u2019s parent was contacted and arrived to pick up the student.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spencer says learning that her child was taken off campus was terrifying.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo this is irresponsible,\u201d Spencer said. \u201cWhat if something would have happened to my daughter? What if I would have never got her back? They, I don\u2019t think they understand. All they\u2019re realizing is, we got her back, she\u2019s safe. We don\u2019t know what happened in that time. I don\u2019t know how long she was gone. I don\u2019t know anything. And they won\u2019t give me any information.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spencer filed a report with the Houston ISD Police Department and says she still has unanswered questions about what happened while her daughter was away from school.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo they put my child in the car, even though my child is telling them, \u2018This is not my mommy. This is not my daddy. This is not my car,\u2019\u201d Spencer said.<\/p>\n
\u201cStrangers take my daughter, with no ID, no fact-checking, no anything,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Spencer shared cell phone video with KPRC 2 showing the school principal apologizing to her for the incident. While she acknowledges the apology, she says it does not undo the emotional impact on her family.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut something like that I get it, you can be very sincere but that don\u2019t take away my trauma,\u201d Spencer said. \u201cThat don\u2019t take away my child\u2019s trauma, and that don\u2019t help us. Thank you for the apology, but this is something we cannot get back. She\u2019s scared to go to school.\u201d<\/p>\n
Houston ISD says several changes have already been made in response.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe employee has been removed from car rider duty, and additional staff have been assigned to support Pre-K car rider dismissal,\u201d the district said. \u201cSchool administrators have updated dismissal procedures for the student involved, who will now be dismissed directly from the front office.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Spencer says broader changes are needed and that pickup protocols used earlier in the school year should be enforced consistently.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have the tags around the kids\u2019 names. It has the name so when they check the name and they check the card, it matches,\u201d she said. \u201cThey don\u2019t do that no more. They let that go after the first month, and I feel like that needs to be brought back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spencer says she took her daughter to the doctor Friday morning and that everything checked out fine physically. Still, she says the emotional toll remains.<\/p>\n
Houston ISD says it is committed to student safety.<\/p>\n
\u201cHISD is committed to ensuring the safety of students before, during and after school,\u201d the district said.<\/p>\n
Spencer hopes sharing her story prompts change and encourages parents to talk with their children about safety, including using code words to help prevent situations like this from happening.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2013 A Houston mother is demanding accountability after she says her 4-year-old daughter was mistakenly placed into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[60769,4045,56,58,1686,57,18000,60770,60768,60771,2360,5156],"class_list":["post-144841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-bastian-elementary-school","tag-hisd","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-isd","tag-houston-news","tag-mistake","tag-parental-concern","tag-pick-up","tag-pre-k-student-error","tag-school","tag-school-accountability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}