First-grader in Fort Worth ISD dropped off at wrong bus stop. But he’s not the only one.
A first-grader at North Hi Mount Elementary was dropped off at the wrong bus stop Thursday afternoon — his first time using the school’s transportation, according to his mother. But Anthony Ray Salas Jr. isn’t the first student in the Fort Worth Independent School District to experience this problem.
Salas, 6, expected to be dropped off at the Thomas Place Community Center, where his mother, Stephanie Garcia Chacon, would pick him up. But Salas found himself dropped off around the corner from his family’s apartment complex, 10 minutes away from the community center, Garcia Chacon said.
Salas knew he was near home and walked there, but the problem was no one was there to let him inside, she said. Neighbors saw him wandering and took him to the apartment complex office, where the office manager called Garcia Chacon to let her know where her son was.
“There’s people out there who don’t mean well, and this could’ve turned out badly. That’s mainly what made me upset, but also knowing the fear that he might have felt that he didn’t have anyone around him that he (knew),” Garcia Chacon said.
Cesar Padilla, a spokesperson for the district, said in a statement Tuesday that Fort Worth ISD holds itself “to high standards of service excellence” and considers student safety a top priority.
“Unfortunately, we did not meet that standard last Thursday. A student was dropped off at home instead of at their after-school program. Because drop-off locations can change for students, we remain vigilant to make sure we are aware of drop-off locations,” he said.
When asked what the process was for bus drivers to keep track of students’ drop-off locations, Padilla said officials “work with our bus drivers to learn each student’s drop-off location” and that the district is “working to acquire technology that will provide us with real-time information.”
Salas’ situation is repetitive of what other families experienced and voiced a year ago at a contentious school board meeting. Several parents told board members their children had been dropped off in the wrong neighborhoods, and the board approved a cell phone service contract that allowed the district to track its buses using GPS.
Additionally, district transportation staff had apologized before the September 2022 meeting after video showed elementary students being forced off a bus almost ½ a mile away from their homes. A parent told the Star-Telegram that his daughters were left crying on the side of the road until another district parent spotted them and took them home.
Officials called the incident “unacceptable” and noted it “does not reflect Fort Worth ISD’s commitment to its students and parents.”
In regards to what Salas experienced, Garcia Chacon said the school’s principal, Laura Armstrong, apologized to Garcia Chacon and would be apologizing to Salas as well about the incident. The students now have name tags and their bus stop location attached to their backpacks.
“I think she’s doing the right thing moving forward, but this should not have happened in the first place. I think transportation is to blame for it,” Garcia Chacon said. “The ISD as a whole needs to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.”
This story was originally published September 12, 2023 at 12:41 PM.
