Baltimore County family upset after they say 6-year-old was placed on wrong bus

A Baltimore County family is angry after they said their 6-year-old was mistakenly placed on the wrong bus and left at the bus stop unsupervised.

A stranger allegedly found the child outside alone and called the school. 

The boy's mother and grandmother are calling for accountability and an investigation into how this happened.

"I don't know what happened" 

Shatira Gray was supposed to be picking up her 6-year-old son, Jeremiah, at Milestone Children's Center after a long day at school at Victory Villa Elementary School in Middle River.

Gray explained that she contacted the school in advance and spoke with a woman who works as a secretary in the school's office.

She informed the school official that she would not be picking Jeremiah up that day and that he should be placed on the daycare bus on Wednesday because she planned to pick him up at the daycare.

"He's been taking the same bus for weeks now since school started," Gray said.

Jeremiah's mother said that normally he rides the Milestone bus to and from school when he is not dropped off or picked up by her, and he has never taken any other bus to go home.

Gray said that on Wednesday, an office staff member from her son's school, Victory Villa Elementary, called her and explained that Jeremiah was placed on the wrong bus, someone saw him alone outside, and called the school.

"'So you're telling me, my son is with a random person,' she said, 'Yes,'" Gray said. "I don't know what happened, but he got on, I think, she said, the tan bus, and they dropped him off, and now a parent has him."

Gray said she was across town and not home at the time of receiving the call from the school because she had plans on picking up Jeremiah at daycare later that afternoon. 

"She said, well, I can go get him— me and the principal, so I guess she and the principal went and got my son," Gray said.

Gray said the school's principal went to pick up her son at the bus stop and brought him back to Victory Villa to be picked up.

"When they called, they put my son on the phone," Gray said. "I said, 'Jeremiah, can you let me know what happened? And he said he got on the bus, and he said he knocked on mommy's door, but nobody was home.' I said, 'How did you even get there? Like, how? What was the reason,'" Gray asked. "He said, 'A lady put him on the bus.'"

"Anything could have happened to him"

Jeremiah's grandmother and mother explained that he has ADHD and severe Hemophilia, which made the incident even more concerning.

"My grandson cried when he got home because he thought it was his fault that he got dropped off that bus at the wrong location," said Jeremiah's grandmother, S. Jordan. "With the severe hemophilia, anything could have happened to him out there. He could have felt that he could have hurt himself or anything. He could have got a bleed."

Once Jeremiah was picked up by his family after being brought back to the school, Gray said no one was able to share the name of the office staff member responsible for putting him on the wrong bus. 

Instead, Gray said she was told that "the whole office probably needs to be retrained." 

"Somebody needs to tell me something because right now nothing makes sense to me," Gray said. "We signed paperwork at the beginning of the school year, so my son's bus is on there. We signed, I signed plenty of paperwork, and talked to the teachers so they know, so that's why I said it's no excuses. You can't tell me this was accidental."

School reaches out to the parent

Jeremiah's mother told WJZ that Victory Villa Elementary reached out to her moments before and after our interview on Thursday morning. 

Gray said the school was apologetic about this situation and told her they are working on taking new measures to make sure this doesn't happen again.

A Baltimore County Public Schools spokesperson told WJZ, "This appears to have been a miscommunication between the family and the school that resulted in the child getting on the wrong bus and being taken to the child's home."

The spokesperson added that, "The issue was quickly resolved, the child was brought back to the school by school staff, and was soon picked up by a caregiver."