Mom furious after school bus driver forgot her 'traumatized' daughter

CTV Toronto: Student locked on bus for hours A Toronto student with special needs was locked on a school bus for hours after being forgotten by the driver. Tracy Tong reports.

The mother of a Toronto high school student with special needs says her daughter is traumatized after she was forgotten on a bus for six hours last week.

Laura Mastache says her 19-year-old daughter Wendy was left inside a bus after the driver failed to check and see if any students were still inside the vehicle after dropping them off at York Humber High School on Jan. 23.

The school bus driver, who was suspended at first, was officially fired Wednesday.

In a statement issued by Stock Transportation, the company responsible for the bus, spokesperson Molly Hart said the safety of students is their "top priority."

"Our drivers are required to conduct a child check to look for students at the end of each route. In this instance, the procedure was not followed and the driver has been terminated," the statement, emailed to CP24 Wednesday, read.

Wendy, who has autism and epilepsy and cannot read or write due to developmental delays, was unable to return to school for a week after the incident.

Mastache said she received a call from the school at the end of the day and was told her daughter had been marked absent but that she had suddenly showed up after classes had ended at around 3 p.m.

She said Wendy returned to the school at the end of the day when the school bus returned to pick students up. Wendy had got off the bus thinking she had only just arrived at school.

When the bus pulled up outside her home that afternoon, Mastache said she confronted the driver.

“So they send my daughter home on the same school bus without even investigating. It’s really confusing. I didn’t get it,” she said. “The bus driver said, ‘Oh, I don’t know anything. I’m sorry.’ That’s it. I asked the kids on the bus if they knew about what happened to Wendy and they said that she’s the last one to be dropped off the bus and that they didn’t know.”

According to Mastache, there are two drop-off locations at York Humber – a main entrance for students attending regular programs and a second entrance for a developmental disability program.

Wendy is the only student who boards the school bus who should be dropped off at the second entrance.

Upon reviewing security camera footage, the school said they didn’t see Wendy everywhere.

Mastache believes her daughter spent more than six hours on the locked school bus alone that day.

“My daughter cannot answer questions, she has limited speech and developmental delays. So she doesn’t know how to write or to read,” Masdache said through tears.

“Autistic kids they have their routines. She has her routines. She wakes up, has her breakfast, gets on the bus, goes to school, gets off the bus and goes to classes and then comes back.”

Toronto police were called to investigate and though no criminal charges were laid, they suggested Wendy be taken to the hospital for a medical examination as a precaution.

Mastache said she went through her daughter’s backpack when she returned home and everything, including her lunch, was still intact.

Wendy also wasn’t wearing a hat or gloves that late-January morning.

Mastache said many of her questions remain unanswered.

“How can you miss her? I don’t know if she was sitting at the front or the back, I don’t know. If the bus driver didn’t see her, other people could see her,” she said.

“I don’t know what happened in that time. I don’t know if she had a convulsion. I don’t know if she passed out because she didn’t drink anything, she didn’t eat anything. It was cold that day. I don’t know what she went through. I don’t know.”

Mastache said the ordeal has severely impacted her daughter’s confidence and dampened her desire to go to school.

“She’s scared to get on the bus now. We’re not trying it but she said, ‘No bus.’” Mastache said.

“If I mention school, she covers her face and she cries and shakes her head, ‘No.’ That’s how she communicates.”

She said the school has since offered her and Wendy other choices for transportation, including a taxi or a van.

But Mastache says Wendy doesn’t have the same sense of enthusiasm for school as she once did.

“We’re going to work out a plan on how Wendy can be introduced to the school again because she loves school,” she said. “It’s going to be unfair for her to not attend school.”

In a statement sent to CTV News Toronto earlier Wednesday afternoon, Toronto District School Board spokesperson Ryan Bird called the incident “completely unacceptable.”

“Since it happened, the school has been working very closely with the student and her family to offer any supports we can and to reassure them that this will not happen again. We have also been in contact with Stock Transportation, which is responsible for the bus, and have been told that the driver in question has been suspended pending the outcome of a review,” Bird said in the statement.

“In the meantime, we have made clear that the driver is not to drive any school bus within the Toronto District School Board going forward. While all bus drivers who work for our contracted carriers undergo Child Check training that requires drivers to visually check the entire bus prior to locking it, we have reiterated with all carriers our clear expectations that this must be done and that drivers receive regular training on this process.”

Bird also stated that the board will change its policy about calling parents when a student is marked as absent.

Previously, the school sent automated calls to parents regarding absent students under the age of 18.

Now, the policy will require an automated call be sent to parents of students with special needs, when the student is absent, regardless of age.

Mastache said she’s glad TDSB has opted to change their policy because it’s “not the first time the system has failed us.”

“I asked for that because I’m not just my daughter’s voice, I’m the voice of everybody,” she said.

“We have the right to know where our kids are even if they are 18 years old.”