‘There needs to be more accountability’: Lexington mom concerned after child dropped off at wrong bus stop
FAYETTE COUNTY, Ky (WTVQ)- A Lexington mother is furious after she says a school bus driver left her 11-year-old son more than a mile away from his normal bus stop. And now she’s demanding answers.
Alecia Coleman says when her son, Keigan, hadn’t made it home on time Monday, following a day at FCPS’s Summer Ignite Program, she got concerned.
“He verified with his instructor what bus he was to get on. He checked with the bus driver, what stop he had, and he said the bus driver wrote down his stop,” says Coleman.
Coleman waited for Keigan and looked outside at the bus stop. But he never showed. Alecia says she waited more than twenty minutes. But decided to go to the school.
“I go to the school because no one answered the phone when I called, I go to the school, I check in, they tell me the bus was late. They tell me and that it would probably be at my house by now,” says Coleman.
Still no Keigan. Coleman says she drove around looking for him, but still couldn’t find him.
So she went back to the school.
“They were helpful, they were wonderful, they called the bus garage, and then they got the driver on the phone. They described my child to this man. And he said he didn’t have anyone at that stop. He didn’t have any kids on the bus. So, by the time I looked down again, almost an hour had gone by. I was about to call 911 to report missing children, and my husband said ‘hey, he just got home.”
Keigan had made it home, but says he was dropped off at a different bus stop more than a mile away on the opposite of Man O’ War Boulevard.
“The bus driver just blew through the stop. He just went straight past the stop. And me and the person that were supposed to get dropped off at the same stop. We knew something was wrong. We didn’t know why he went past it. We thought maybe he would just turn around or something, and then he started going down on the other side of Man O’ War,” says Keigan Coleman.
ABC 36 reached out to Fayette County Public Schools for a response. An official with the Office of School Leadership sent a statement to the Colemans saying in part :
“I have personally been in communication with the Associate Director of Transportation yesterday evening and this morning regarding this matter. She has assured me that the bus driver in question is being addressed and will be additionally trained in our expectations for a safe transport of your child and all our FCPS students. I feel confident this is not a burden or issue that your family will face again in our district. However, if you have any concerns related to your child that cannot be fully remedied at the school level with the administrators there, you are always welcome to contact me directly.
Again, I apologize for all that you and your son encountered yesterday, and I hope that you will allow us to reverse your initial middle school impression in FCPS and prove to be a much more reliable partner in moving forward during this 6th grade year, and beyond.”
Coleman says it’s not enough.
“So he abandons two elementary school children just out of elementary school on the side of the road and just leaves? If I had done that id be in jail,” says Coleman.
She continues: “There needs to be more accountability. Someone needs to be held accountable for where they’re dropping the children off. There are state laws that say they’re not allowed to let children off at another bus stop unless the principal writes a note. But its okay to throw the kids out at a bus stop and go figure it out. That’s not right.”
Keigan hopes this doesn’t happen to another student.
“It’s kind of just a weird situation because like I don’t want this to happen to anyone else. So I don’t really know what we can do about it. I just want everyone to be safe and get home,” says Keigan.
Coleman now says she plans to send a cell phone with Keigan daily to make sure something like this never happens again.
