Four-year-old girl placed on wrong bus on her first day of school

(9/04/07 - KTRK/TOMBALL, TX) (KTRK) -- It's your child's first day at pre-kindergarten. You go to pick her up at the bus, and she's not there. It happened to a Tomball couple and now they're asking questions.

District officials admit a mistake was made when a four-year-old was put on the wrong bus at Willow Creek Elementary School. But they also say in the first few weeks of school, mistakes like this are not uncommon. That's little comfort for the mother whose biggest nightmare was caught on camera.

"Unbelievable. It's horrifying, absolutely horrifying," recalled mother Mari Ortegon.

That was her reaction when Ortegon realized her four-year-old daughter was missing. The Tomball mother documented what she thought would be a joyous moment on her cell phone camera. It was to be the end of her daughter's first bus ride home from school.

Ortegon said, "We were expecting for the child next door to get off along with Elena, but Elena wasn't on the bus at all. It was a huge shock."

Little Elena's parents rushed to Willow Creek Elementary School. When they got there, Ortegon says no one could give her definite answers.

She said, "At that point, the principal looked at me and said, 'Ma'am, I have over 900 children here. Do you realize how hard that is to keep up with?' I was devastated."

Tomball ISD spokesperson Staci Stanfield denies the principal ever made that statement and says the four-year-old's frantic parents were told she was probably on the wrong bus.

"But the campus knew which bus the child had been placed on," Stanfield explained. "It was just a matter of getting through to the bus driver to confirm that."

That process took more than an hour, and the Ortegons say no one from the school explained what was happening. Then, shortly before 6pm, someone with a Tomball ISD badge dropped Elena off at home.

"Who gave her that authority? Who issued it? Why wasn't I notified? We were at the school," Ortegon wanted to know.

Stanfield admits the employee violated district policy by taking Elena from the wrong school bus and putting her in her personal vehicle.

Ortegon is now rethinking her decision to send Elena to pre-K in the first place.
(Copyright © 2007, KTRK-TV)

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