It has been a rough start to the school year for some parents and students at the Sir Wilfrid Laurier School Board.
A mother tells Global News her seven-year-old went missing for hours after school last week before being found by police.
“That was the most horrifying moment I can live in all my life,” said Monika Chavez, mother of the Grade 2 student.
It was a long three hours for Chavez on Friday.
Her daughter Makayla goes to school at McCaig Elementary in Rosemere. Chavez and her sister just moved to the neighbourhood with their children.
Friday was Makayla’s second day at her new school.
“I waited until 4:30 p.m., the bus came, my daughter didn’t get off the bus. I asked the bus driver, ‘Where’s my daughter?’ He told me it wasn’t his responsibility,” she explained.
Chavez and her sister Robyn then went to the school.
“The school refused to call the police while we were here and we were saying, ‘Why has nobody called the police?’ And they said, ‘We want to find her first,'” said Chavez’s sister.
As it turned out, Makayla never got on the bus.
“When she got out of school, they didn’t tell her where she had to go or anything. They just left her there. When they closed the gate, she panicked and started walking,” Chavez said.
The scared seven-year-old wandered the streets until finally asking a stranger for help.
“She was found by some teenagers, crying with swollen feet on the side of the road. They called the police,” Chavez said.
This comes just days after Global News reported the story of two young children from the same school board getting dropped off by their schoolbus a kilometre away from home.
READ MORE: North Shore family claims elementary school kids abandoned by bus driver
“The bus driver has not been terminated as of now. Do I feel safe? Not really,” said the father of those children, Michael Brazill.
“We take this situation very seriously and we share the parents’ concerns,” the Wilfrid Laurier School Board said in a statement.
“We have established corrective measures with the transporter in question and continue to follow up with them,” the board added.
Neither parent seems satisfied.
“I don’t think they did any diligence whatsoever,” said Brazill. “The only thing I think they tried to do was protect themselves.”
“It’s very vague, doesn’t ensure me nothing, doesn’t take away my panic,” Chavez said of the statement.
The same bus carrier, Autobus G.D. Paquette, was involved in both situations.
Rick Paquette, who heads the carrier, attributed what happened to the Brazill family to beginning-of-the-year glitches. When asked about potentially disciplining the driver, he said the incident was still under investigation.
Paquette would not comment on what happened to the Chavez family.
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