3-year-old girl left alone on New Hanover County school bus

NEW HANOVER COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — A Wilmington mother is upset after her 3-year-old child was left alone on a school bus Tuesday morning.

Tasheena Barnes says she got a call from the principal of Dorothy B. Johnson Pre-K Center at around 8:00 a.m., letting her know that her daughter has just returned to school after being found on the school bus when it went to the garage.

Barnes was extremely upset.

“I was panicking, like I didn’t know what to do. I was lost,” Barnes said.

Barnes couldn’t believe her daughter, Adreana, was left on the bus.

“All I could think is, where is she at? Like how did this happen, when it’s two bus monitors and one bus driver?”

New Hanover County Schools Spokeswoman Valita Quattlebaum confirms a child was inadvertently left on the school bus after the morning drop off.

“The staff realized the student did not arrive at school and contacted the Transportation Department to locate her. The student was located and delivered back to school,” Quattlebaum said in a statement.

Barnes says Adreana’s 5-year-old brother Damien was sitting next to his sister when the bus arrived at school.

“He said something to the bus monitor, that his sister was still on the bus. She told Damien that ‘don’t worry about it she will get her,'” Barnes said.

Barnes asked her daughter what happened.

“All she kept saying was ‘it was dark,’ so she must have known the lights cut off on the bus.”

Quattlebaum said the school is reviewing the incident.

“The administration and staff at Johnson Pre-K are already working to prevent further occurrences of this kind. They will be reviewing processes and procedures around bus safety and some additional staff training will be required,” Quattlebaum wrote. “In addition, we are working with our Human Resources Division to determine if staff disciplinary actions will be needed once our investigation of the incident is complete. NHCS takes the safety of our students seriously and we apologize that this incident occurred.”

But Barnes says she has had enough and will not let her children return.

“I feel like they’re not safe there,” Barnes said. “Anything could have happened”