Parents Angry Over Lost School Bus

SEATTLE - Angry parents are asking for changes and an apology after a Seattle school bus with their kids on board got lost. They say the bus driver compounded his own mistakes by verbally abusing the riders, who were all elementary kids who tried to help.

" We were all writing, cause the windows were foggy, we were writing, 'help us,' " says 8-year-old Niaya Aaron, describing the efforts the kids made to get off the bus.

"Most of us were crying but he was yelling," Niaya says of the school bus driver.

She says 18 students, eight from Dunlap Elementary School and 10 from New School on Southshore Elementary School, were on the bus operated by First Student. The company provides contract transportation services to the Seattle School District.

The driver was a substitute and unfamiliar with No. 630 normal bus route. The kids knew something was wrong right away when the bus got on I-5, heading for Renton, which would put it miles off course.

"And we were telling him, this is not the right way and finally he turned the bus around," says Niaya.

Soon he was lost again. A spokesperson for the school district says the driver made a wrong turn and tried to turn around in homeowners' driveway when the bus got stuck in the dirt.

Meanwhile, Naiya's mom was frantic when she heard from Niaya's day care that her bus hadn't shown up for 45 minutes. She called the district's transportation office.

"They come back and say the bus is not responding to us, hold on we are trying to get the bus, " says the girl's mother, Nicole Bascomb. "Another 10 minutes, they come back, 'The bus is not responding, we are trying to get a hold of them, don't worry.' At this time, I had a meltdown honestly on the phone"

Meanwhile, the unidentified driver let some students, including Niaya, a third grader at Dunlap Elementary School, go to a nearby house to use the bathroom. That's when Niaya used their phone to call mom.

"So I said, 'Why are you in the house?' " says Bascomb describing the phone call with her daughter.

" 'We'll he let us go in the house to use the bathroom.' I said, so 'OK, is he with you?' 'No he's outside on the bus.' So I'm livid at this point," says Bascomb.

The district admits there was a lapse of communication.

"A series of things did not go right in this situation," says district spokesperson Patti Spencer.

"We'll certainly be examining that to determine if there's any additional training or informing that we need to do," says Spencer.

Spencer adds that emergency protocol gives the driver the option to let kids off the bus, unsupervised into a house.

Niaya's mom believes the district needs to be proactive if busses get lost.

"I never got a phone call anything. Had Niaya not called and had these people not been nice people, you know I wouldn't have found her," says Bascomb.

Niaya now has second thoughts about riding the bus.

"I'll only ride the bus if the original bus driver comes back," says Niaya.

Some kids were picked up by their parents at the location of the stuck school bus. Another bus took the rest of the kids home more than two and half hours late. District officials will be meeting Wednesday with First Student to discuss the matter.