CYPRESS, Texas – A mother says she panicked after her kindergartener was placed on a school bus and dropped off, even though she says there was an agreement that he’d be picked up from school.
This happened on the little boy’s first day at Bang Elementary School at Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District.
“Yesterday was a different mindset, different emotion,” said Kapua Medeiros-Bailey, the boy’s mother about the incident.
On Monday, the first-time mom says she was looking forward to picking up her 5-year-old, but the joy and excitement quickly turned to panic and fear when he wasn’t there.
“When I did make it to the front, my child didn’t come out,” Medeiros-Bailey said.
She says she was initially told by school staff he may have gone to the bathroom.
“But he still didn’t come out,” she said.
Then, she says she learned she wasn’t the only parent looking for their child.
“Unfortunately, I was not the only parent in the office trying to get some answers,” she said.
But the answer she said she got, only caused more concern.
“They informed me that my child was put on to a Cy-Fair ISD school bus,” she said.
Earlier this month, Medeiros-Bailey says she filled out and submitted a form for her son to be picked up from the school. “That information was not translated into their system.”
After realizing what happened, she told KPRC 2 that school staff assured her that her son would be brought back to the school since no one was there to pick him up, but that didn’t happen either.
“He (my son) said ‘Mommy I told,’ what he called the bus teacher, ‘my mom is not here, but the bus teacher picked me up, and put me down off of the bus,’” she said.
It was a neighbor who Medeiros-Bailey says found her son wandering around the complex crying and took him to the leasing office where they notified her. She’s hoping the district learns from this incident.
“He’s also in such a young stage where I’m now putting him in the hands of others and I’m trusting you to get him back to me as well. That’s what didn’t happen,” she said.
Cy-Fair ISD said they’d get back to us with a comment but so far that hasn’t happened.
Medeiros-Bailey says her son was picked up by his daycare Tuesday as planned.
She adds it’s going to be hard to fully trust Cy-Fair ISD again, but based on their interaction she does believe the school district is adamant about making sure this never happens again.