Minneapolis mother says school bus mix up left 6-year-old girl missing for hours

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - A Minneapolis mother says a mix up with the school bus left her young daughter with special needs missing for hours on Monday.

Celestine Clayton’s six-year-old daughter is only partially verbal. As special needs first grader at Folwell School in south Minneapolis, when the bus drops her at their apartment at Lake and Hiawatha, the rule is a parent or guardian must be there. Celestine says on Monday she was there but the school bus wasn’t.

"I went downstairs," said Clayton. "I waited from 3:05 until 3:17. The bus is supposed to be there at 3:11."

She called the school and was told the exact opposite.

"So then he told them he would be back in ten minutes," she said. "Thirty minutes passed and he still hadn't came back."

Using notifications on her phone, from the "Here Comes the Bus" app, Clayton went off to find the bus, only to discover, she says, her daughter was actually on a different bus. Eventually, she was taken to the transportation hub, which is protocol.

In a statement, the district said: "We are aware of a situation where a parent is stating her child was never dropped off at home yesterday.  We’ve investigated, and our GPS records show the bus arrived at the child’s house twice, but each time, no one was there to receive the student."

Clayton insists she was there and she wants this figured out for her and her daughter.

"She's afraid to go to school because she said the man on the bus just kept driving and I wanted to go home," Clayton explained.