Family seeks legal action after FWISD student dropped off at wrong bus stop
A second-grader in the Fort Worth Independent School District is the latest student to be dropped off at the wrong bus stop, which has become a repetitive issue within the district in recent years.
Amparo Wynn said her 8-year-old grandson David, a Clifford Davis Elementary student, was dropped off about a quarter mile from home on Tuesday, May 6, when a substitute bus driver left him in the incorrect neighborhood. Now, Wynn is seeking legal action against the district and planning to contact Child Protective Services to report child negligence, she said. She wants the district and bus driver to be held accountable and ensure no other student experiences the same incident David did, since he wasn’t the first.
“I hate to do all of this, but if this is what I have to do to be a voice for not only my grandson, but for the children that have been through this before, and for the parents that have been through this before, I’m going to be their voice,” Wynn said. “I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure that this does not happen to another child.”
Fort Worth ISD officials said in a statement they were aware of the incident, which involved a substitute bus driver. The executive director of the transportation department has implemented actions steps for substitute drivers to review and verify students’ drop-off locations before taking over a route, district officials said.
“FWISD is committed to further enhancing student safety. Starting in the 2025-2026 school year, the district will introduce a new program providing students with ID badges to use when boarding and exiting the bus. This system will link each student,” officials said. “The safety of our students is our top priority, and we are taking both immediate and long-term measures to prevent incidents like this from occurring in the future.”
Wynn, who is David’s primary caregiver, said she grew concerned on Tuesday afternoon when David didn’t show up at home at the usual time, roughly 3:30 p.m. It was about 20 minutes later when David arrived “with a face of fear” Wynn said she hadn’t seen before from him. He was hyperventilating with tears in his eyes when he explained that he had to cross a busy street in an area he was unfamiliar with to find his way home, she said. The driver was supposed to drop him off at the corner of Savage Drive and Mansel Lane, and David questioned the driver twice about the drop-off location, Wynn said.
Although the bus driver called Wynn to apologize, Wynn felt it wasn’t a sincere apology and criticized district officials for sharing Wynn’s phone number without her permission. Wynn also took issue with another district staff member calling the incident a mistake and telling Wynn to let David know he shouldn’t get off at the wrong bus stop next time, she said.
“Would it have been a mistake if he would have got ran over? Would it have been a mistake if he would have got abducted? If he’d have took a wrong turn and got lost, and to this moment we would be out here looking for him? No, it’s unacceptable,” Wynn said.
In September 2023, a first-grader at North Hi Mount Elementary was also dropped off at the wrong location. A year prior, several district parents spoke out about similar bus issues impacting their children during a contentious school board meeting, where the board approved a cell phone service contract allowing the district to use GPS tracking on its buses. The contract came about a month after a video released by KTVT-TV showed elementary students being forced off a bus about half a mile from home. A parent of the students said they were left crying on the side of the road and were taken home after another district parent spotted them and gave them a ride. District officials called the incident “unacceptable” and said it didn’t align with the district’s commitment to families.
The district recently hired a new transportation director, Nathan Graf, who told the school board last month that he vowed to turn around a department he characterized as inadequate and disorganized under previous leadership. Graf is working to consolidate bus routes, hire and recruit more drivers, and roll out a program that automates routes and notifies parents if their child’s bus is late. Before his presentation to the school board in April, bus mechanics spoke out during a previous board meeting with complaints about low staffing levels for in-house workers and outside contractors taking over positions.
This story was originally published May 9, 2025 at 1:52 PM.
