However, with the hectic nature of the first day of school, that didn’t happen Tuesday.
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A 5-year-old Berks County boy never made it to his first day of kindergarten. Prince was the lone kindergartner on the bus headed to Kindergarten at Monocacy Elementary Center.
In fact, nobody even knew Prince was trapped on the school bus until his mother called the school at noon when the bus didn’t drop him off after the half-day. New Rhoads Transportation staff then checked the bus, which was sitting in the company lot.
The owner of the bus company said that when Prince was discovered, the boy asked if he could please go to kindergarten. “He was hot, sweaty”. Instead, he spent about four hours alone on the parked bus, twice crying himself to sleep after the bus driver walked away and did not hear him yelling, his mother tells WFMZ.
“Generally, the drivers check for backpacks, water bottles, books, things like that”, Harris said.
Harris said everyone involved is “very sorry” and have apologized profusely to the student and his parents, while also expressing happiness that the situation didn’t end up worse.
According to the Reading Eagle, Prince Oquendo was locked on a school bus for four hours after being overlooked by a school bus driver. “We just need to do what we are supposed to be doing”.
“I’m going to be driving him back and forth to school”, Oquendo said. “I don’t want him on any buses at all”, Oquendo said.
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The school district is scheduled to hold a meeting Thursday night for parents to address concerns.
