PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY, Md. (7News) — A school bus dropped off an eight-year-old child with autism at the wrong house, leaving his parents frantically searching for more than an hour.
“I never want a mother or father to feel like this,” said Chelsea Greenwood.
She and her husband Martin felt fear and panic as the minutes ticked by without seeing their son Zane’s bus roll down the street and drop him off at their doorstep.
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“You hear the stories of the kids that go missing, and they don’t come back, so I don’t want my child to become that statistic,” said Chelsea.
Zane is Greenwood’s “adventurous” one. The eight-year-old is goofy and energetic, along with blunt, knowing exactly what he wants. He was diagnosed with autism at three years old during COVID. Communicating is difficult for Zane. The Greenwoods say they’re working with him on expressing himself more. He rides a special bus with an aide the family knows and he’s normally dropped off from Colin Powell Academy between 3:30 p.m. and 4:00 p.m.
Chelsea realized there was a substitute bus driver and aide, and also saw her son’s AirTag wasn’t working. She told her husband to be on the lookout for Zane, just in case. After the normal drop-off time passed, she called the school to see what was going on, and they told her Zane’s bus was one of the first to pick up kids, and it was stuck in traffic.
They continued to wait. Then, Zane’s aide texted to check in and make sure he made it home. When Chelsea told them what was going on, they sent her the numbers with the transportation team to call.
Finally, Chelsea got a call back from someone with transportation.
“She called back and said, ‘ Well, the bus driver said he has been dropped off,’ and I said, ‘ No, we’re here waiting for him,” said Chelsea.
After waiting more than an hour for Zane, the Greenwoods called the police. Chelsea started driving around to see if she could find him.
“Maybe he got dropped off somewhere, and he’s wandering, I don’t know, but I felt like sitting here was doing nothing,” said Chelsea, “A few minutes later, she came back on the line. She was very calm, and she said, Mom, he’ll be home in 10 minutes. I said, ‘Okay, where is he,’ she said, ‘He’s on Livingston Road; he’ll be home in 10 minutes.’ That was it.”
Zane was dropped off after 5 p.m.
“When that bus pulls up, I see my son, I grab him, I give him a big hug, and I carry him into the house,” said Chelsea. “When he got off the bus, the first thing he told me was, Mommy, the bus is scary.”
After days of going back and forth with transportation leaders, Martin learned the exact address where his son was dropped off along Livingston Road five miles away from their home.
“Knowing that he can’t articulate what my home is, what my parents’ numbers are, that’s a whole other element of fear and anger and frustration you can’t put into words because you just want to go get them,” said Martin. “Why did the steps not happen, why did the aide not look at the sheet, why was the child dropped off in a location where that child wasn’t even on the bus?”
According to Martin, there were people outside where Zane was dropped off: a grandmother with an autistic family member of her own, and a 13-year-old boy who helped the grandmother try to communicate with Zane. The people living there shared video from their security cameras that shows a bus dropping Zane off at 4:45 p.m. then picking him back up at 5:10 p.m. Martin says they also called 911.
The Greenwoods told 7News no police officer from the Prince George’s County Police came to either location in relation to those calls.
“I’ve received personal messages from people with very similar issues and concerns,” said Chelsea. “It’s so concerning because this is happening so frequently, but nothing is changing; how can this be such an issue?”
The Greenwoods told 7News that the substitute aide and substitute bus driver are on administrative leave. They are pushing to review the video footage from the bus to see what happened that day. They also want to see all bus drivers and aides with a physical copy of not just information, but a picture of what each rider with special needs looks like. They told 7News leaders need to realize the system isn’t working.
7News reached out to Prince George’s County Public Schools for a statement on the situation at the end of the business day, and they have not responded to our request.
“How can we say our job as PG County Public School system, your child’s safety is our number one priority, but we’re not making sure they’re safe,” said Chelsea.
This post was originally published on Fox 45 by Sinclair Media Group.
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