FIRST ON 3: 5-year-old put on wrong school bus, dropped off at Walmart

BRUNSWICK COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — A Brunswick County family is upset after a five-year-old girl was put on the wrong school bus and dropped off at the Walmart in Leland. Relatives say it happened at Town Creek Elementary Monday. A school district spokeswoman confirms the incident happened.

The school district released the following statement this afternoon:

“On the afternoon of September 12 a kindergarten student at Town Creek Elementary School boarded the wrong school bus and later got off the bus at a stop near her parent’s place of employment. Fortunately, the student was reunited safely with her parent. Brunswick County Schools deeply regrets this unfortunate incident and accepts responsibility to ensure incidents of this nature do not occur in the future.

“Schools actively take precautionary measures designed to prevent situations such as this from occurring. As a result of yesterday’s incident, elementary schools throughout the system reviewed their practices to ensure clear labeling either by sticker, head or wristband all young students to ensure bus drivers verify students are on the correct bus. Specifically Town Creek Elementary School designed and implemented colored headbands for all young students corresponding to the driver’s colored headband.

“There remains an ongoing investigation into personnel actions resulting in yesterday’s incident.”

Tune in to WWAY NewsChannel 3 for more on this story.