It started with a post in an Ottawa parenting Facebook group for children born in 2020, who started junior kindergarten this week.
“Today my three-year-old kindergartener accidentally took the wrong bus after school.”
Amid the dozens of distressed reactions and supportive comments from other moms, several more chimed in to say the exact same thing happened to their kids this week at different schools in Ottawa. Three-year-olds, during their first-ever week of school, all somehow wound up on wrong buses at the end of the school day.
In some cases, their parents had no idea where their children were. CBC News spoke with several mothers who said this happened to them. But the issue also extends beyond Ottawa, and isn’t just affecting the youngest kids. The parents whose children were briefly lost say they just want accountability.
“I feel like there’s no check-system happening,” said Alyssia Klyne, whose three-year-old son Preston boarded the wrong bus Wednesday. It was his second day of school and first day riding the bus.
Klyne says she didn’t even know anything was amiss until the school bus rolled up at the end of the day and Preston walked off, alone, without his older sister, and Klyne asked the bus driver where she was.
“I’m like ‘OK, but where is my daughter? Also, where are all the other kids on this bus?’ And he was like, ‘Oh, no, this isn’t even his bus. They put him on the wrong bus,'” she told CBC News.
Kazia Peplinskie, also of Ottawa, was at her own bus stop waiting for her three-year old Wednesday. It was her daughter’s first day of junior kindergarten (JK). When she didn’t climb down the stairs, Peplinskie realized she wasn’t on the bus at all.
“What went through my mind is I hope she is safe and with an adult,” Peplinskie said. “I was more worried about whether she was feeling scared.”
Who is responsible?
Protocols to ensure kids board the correct bus are typically the responsibility of school boards and individual schools, said Nancy Daigneault, the executive director of School Bus Ontario, a non-profit advocacy group. And policies differ across the province, she added in email statement.
“Many schools/boards have tags for the really young kids — JK, SK [senior kindergarten], Grade 1 and even Grade 2 — to ensure they get on right bus,” Daigneault wrote.
But it’s not just an Ontario issue. In Saint John, N.B., social media has been blowing up with school bus horror stories from parents this first week back, said Nicole Murphy, who has two children, ages 10 and 14. Kids are being put on the wrong buses, being let off at the wrong stops, or being told there’s no space for them and made to walk home, Murphy alleged.
Her teen daughter was told this week there was no room for her on the bus, Murphy said. Luckily, she had a cell phone, and Murphy was able to pick her up. But the same wasn’t true for her friend’s six-year-old, who Murphy says boarded the wrong bus and was missing for 40 minutes.
“No one knew where he was,” Murphy said. “Something needs to happen. It’s just not safe.”
Information Morning – Saint John12:20Back to school with ASD-S superintendent
Teachers and administrators have been busy preparing for this back to school week. Derek O’Brien, the superintendent of Anglophone School District South, speaks with host Rachel Cave about some of the changes facing students in the district this year.
Derek O’Brien, the superintendent of Anglophone School District South, which includes Saint John, told CBC Radio‘s Information Morning – Saint John on Wednesday that their transportation was “large, a huge beast,” and he expects “that there will be complications along the way” with 235 buses covering more than 33,000 kilometres each day.
“It’s a huge system, so we do anticipate that will have some wrinkles, but we’re ironing those out and hopefully the families are being very patient with us as we move through that,” O’Brien told the radio show.
Ottawa transport authority confirms incidents
The Ottawa Student Transportation Authority (OSTA), which facilitates transportation for the Public and Catholic school boards in the region, confirmed in an email statement to CBC News that “there have been incidents this year where students have boarded the wrong bus.”
“For kindergarten students, school staff are responsible for ensuring they board the correct bus. Students in Grade 1 and above generally board on their own; however school staff are present in the loading zones to assist students,” the OSTA wrote.
“If it is discovered that a student has boarded or been placed on the wrong bus, the driver immediately informs their dispatch, who then contacts OSTA and the school.”
The OSTA added that efforts are made to reach the parent or guardian to co-ordinate a meeting point with the bus, and if the parent or guardian cannot be reached, the student is returned to the school. But the situations can vary, the statement continued.
“Assigned OSTA staff remain on duty until all bus operators confirm that no students remain on board vehicles.”
CBC News reached out to the Ottawa Catholic School Board and the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board for comment. In a written statement, the Catholic board said their protocols include detailed bus lists, student identification systems, and close staff supervision.
“Our teachers and support staff work closely with the OSTA to confirm that students board the correct bus and arrive safely at their designated stops.”
The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board didn’t immediately respond.
Canadian kids discuss their feelings — good, bad and in between — about heading back to school in September.
‘I was not OK’
Tanya Laughlin of Ottawa says she had no idea where her son was for an excruciating hour Tuesday. She was waiting for her kids at the bus stop at the end of their first day of school. Her four-year old walked down the steps to meet her. But her eight-year-old son, John, wasn’t on the bus at all.
“I was not OK,” Laughlin told CBC News. “How on earth did it take an hour to figure out if he was even on a bus?”
Once she alerted the driver, Laughlin says the school, transportation board, and driver all scrambled for an hour to figure out if John was on a different bus or if he even got on a bus at all. No one knew. In the end, it was the bus driver who took control of the situation and located John on another bus, while also dropping off the kids on his own route, Laughlin said.
From there, it took another 30 minutes to be reunited with her son. Laughlin stresses it wasn’t the driver’s fault, and that in fact, he’s the hero of the situation. But she’s angry this happened to her son, and wants accountability. She also thinks the OSTA and bus drivers need a better way communicate with each other in an emergency situation.
“He’s eight. He doesn’t have a cell phone. He had no way to reach me,” Laughlin said. “How did the school not know where my kid was?”
As for the three-year olds, Klyne says she still doesn’t know what happened to her son, and why Preston arrived home on the bus he was on, alone. Peplinskie says it didn’t take long for the driver of the bus her daughter was on to call the school and bring her back, but she was still scared not knowing where she was.
Sierra Jursza says this is exactly why bought an AirTag for her son, River. Last year, River boarded the wrong bus home from his school in Niagara Falls, Ont. He was three. Jursza says she was waiting at the bus stop, and when River didn’t get off the bus, she went into a sheer panic.
Jursza drove to the school after finally getting through to the receptionist to alert her that River didn’t come home. No one knew where he was for about 40 minutes, Jursza said.
“Staff members were looking in bushes for him. I was bawling my eyes out because I have no idea where my kid is,” she recalled.
In the end, it was a friend who called Jursza to say River was on her child’s bus. The driver brought him back to the school, and luckily, River didn’t realize anything was amiss, Jursza said. She says there was never any follow-up from the school.
“I bought an AirTag and put it on his backpack,” Jursza said. “We kind of laugh about it now, but it was traumatic.”
The Newfoundland and Labrador government has gotten rid of the rule that required students to live 1.6 kilometres from a school in order to be eligible for busing. While the move has some families cheering, the owner of Bursey’s Bus Service says it’s a big business win, too.