Schaumburg Twp. school bus driver misplaces 5-year-old

Schaumburg Township Elementary District 54 has barred a substitute school bus driver from returning to the same route where she dropped off a kindergartner at the wrong stop.

Schaumburg mother Laura Flores says she and her family were outraged Thursday when the bus bringing her 5-year-old son Adam home from Armstrong Elementary School in Hoffman Estates drove right past his usual stop where her sister stood waiting for the boy.

Adam ended up at a stop about quarter-mile away where he was found looking very upset by another parent waiting there, Flores said.

Mutual calls to Armstrong got the moms in touch with each other, and Flores soon arrived from work to pick Adam up.

Flores angrily called the bus company -- First Student in Schaumburg, which provides busing for District 54 -- to demand disciplinary action against the driver. But she was dissatisfied by being told the company would only suspend the driver and send her back for retraining.

"Anyone who can't communicate with students shouldn't be driving here," Flores said. "I want her fired. For 15 minutes, I lost my son. I didn't know where my son was."

Flores said she is deeply grateful to the other mother who not only found Adam but comforted him until Flores arrived. He'd had an issue in class earlier that morning and believed he was being punished for it, she said, adding he's resists riding the bus at all.

District 54 spokeswoman Terri McHugh said the matter of driver discipline remains with the bus company, but the district does have some rights regarding driver selection under its contract with First Student.

The district can ask that a driver be barred from a particular route or from any route in the district. The first option is being taken for this particular driver, McHugh said.

Officials from First Student did not return phone calls.