Syracuse, NY -- Syracuse mom Cynthia Dorsey says she got a call at work Wednesday afternoon from a neighbor who told her her six-year-old daughter was sitting on the porch of their Bryant Avenue home.
The child, Zayda Sutton, 6, is a first grader at Porter Elementary School and was supposed to have been put on a school bus that took her to her day care provider after school, Dorsey said.
Instead, she said, the school put Zayda on a bus that took her to the stop near their home. The child apparently made her way alone to her house, where the alert neighbor spotted her, according to her mom.
“What if she crossed the street and got hit by a car? And I didn’t even know where she was,” Dorsey said.
Zayda’s transportation schedule isn’t the same every day, and Friday is the only day she is supposed to get dropped off at the stop near her house, as she was on Wednesday, Dorsey said. Dorsey meets her at the stop on Fridays.
District Transportation Director Pat Bailey said she was looking into what happened but did not yet have that information. It appeared the child may have been put on her Friday bus, Bailey said.
Zayda stays after school to attend the Say Yes to Education program, but there was no Say Yes program Wednesday.
On days when there is no Say Yes, the school is supposed to put the child on a bus that takes her to her day care, except Fridays, when she is supposed to take the bus to the Bryant Avenue stop, according to Dorsey. There is no Say Yes after school program on Fridays, Bailey said.
Someone at the school made a mistake and needs to be held accountable, Dorsey said.
“Shouldn’t the staff be reliable?” she asked.
Bailey said the district transports 12,000 students to and from school daily and to avoid confusion normally does not allow children to be picked up or delivered to two different stops, for instance a day care and bus stop near their home.
“We don’t usually like doing that just because this type of thing happens,” she said.
In this case, the district will take a look at the system and figure out how to prevent the problem from happening again, she said.
Contact Maureen Nolan 470-2185 or mnolan@syracuse.com