Panic, then anger: Winnipeg mom upset after school bus drops kids off at wrong place

A Winnipeg mom is angry after her two kids were dropped off by their school bus at the wrong place after the first day of school.

Helena Nicholson said a neighbour saw her boys — aged five and seven — standing outside at the corner of their street. The neighbour took them in then called her.

They were supposed to have been driven to a daycare, not home, but the Pembina Trails School Division bus driver told them to get off at their home, even though the older boy insisted they weren't supposed to stop there, Nicholson said.

"The bus driver said, 'Well, this is where my list says you are, you have to get off' … and essentially forcibly made the children get off. And so, you know kids — they trust the adults in their lives, and they got off the bus," she said.

"Thank God my neighbour was there and they're safe and all that."

That relief, however, quickly became dread when Nicholson's thoughts turned to the other kids on the bus.

"I was panicked. I got on the phone and called the daycare and I started texting other parents," she said.

Nicholson quickly learned her experience was not an isolated one. Seven other children who were also supposed to be dropped off at the same daycare were delivered somewhere else, she said.

"There's a couple of children who were left alone without adult supervision on Pembina Highway, in tears," she said.

After hearing that, Nicholson said the relief, and then the panic, roiled into anger.

"Those children are not doing OK. And my heart goes out to them," she said, noting her boys are resilient and doing fine.

"I'm pretty upset that this is allowed to happen or could have happened at all."

'Extremely serious incident': division

Shelley Amos, superintendent and CEO of the Pembina Trails School Division, released a statement saying the south Winnipeg school division is "deeply sorry this happened," and that its processes and communication strategies are being reviewed. 

"Pembina Trails School Division continues to investigate [Wednesday's] extremely serious incident. We acknowledge that students were dropped off at the wrong location under unacceptable circumstances," the statement says.

The division is working with families and daycares "to mitigate the chances of this occurring in the future," it said, and expressed gratitude to "all the parents, adults, and daycare staff who were able to assist in this situation."

Amos cited issues with the division's new transportation app, MyRide K-12, which is being used to co-ordinate the system.

"The implementation of this new software has resulted in some unforeseen challenges," the statement said, but said less than 10 per cent of busing students have been impacted.

Days before the school year started, Nicholson noticed the app had her home address, rather than the daycare, as the drop-off point for her boys.

She called the division and was assured that it would be corrected. The day before school began, it still listed the home address, so Nicholson called again.

"I spent most of that day calling. I finally got through to somebody and they said, 'Please don't worry, we are aware that they're going to daycare. They won't be dropped off at home.'"

Pembina Trails has seen significant growth in its student population, many of whom take the bus. To deal with the demand, and to ensure it could supply rides to those students, it has staggered its start and end times at 17 schools.

That way, buses can drop off some students with early start times, then get those with later start times.

"They charge a lot of money for our kids to go on the bus," Nicholson said. "So I feel like it should be better."

The busing was much smoother on Thursday, Nicholson said, thanks in part to the school's vice-principal taking the ride with students to make sure everybody got to where they were supposed to.

She and other parents have been going over backup plans with their kids, should something like Tuesday's incident ever happen again.