Exclusive: Bus driver taken off route after boy, 4, dropped off at wrong stop

A series of errors left a young boy wandering lost and alone down a busy stretch of road on the child’s second day of school earlier this month.

The four-year-old boy was found by passing motorists crying and wandering around a busy Mississauga intersection after he was dropped off by a school bus by mistake.

Sinisa Slijepcevic was one of two drivers who stopped to help the boy and then called the police.

“Just in the corner of my eye, I notice there’s a little boy walking by himself, with a backpack and his lunchbox…kinda teary eyes,” Slijepcevic told Citynews. “I asked him so many questions, in six different languages, he would not say a word.”

The Peel District School Board (PDSB) says the boy attends Sawmill Valley Public School along with his twin brother and that the boys are scheduled to take the bus home on certain days.

That particular day both boys were supposed to be put in the on-site after school program, but somehow school staff put one of the boys on a bus.

“Unfortunately an error was made with this child and he was put on the bus,” David Neale with the PDSB explained. “The error was compounded when the bus driver let him off at the wrong stop.”

Forty-five children were dropped off at the stop on Burnhamthorpe Road and Erin Mills Parkway, right across the street from two highrises where a number of students live.

The bus company, Switzer-Carty, believes the boy became lost in the shuffle. They say the driver failed to check the boy’s school bus identification tag and did not wait at the stop until each child was picked up by an adult.

Neale says safety checks at the school have been increased since the incident.

“Protocols in place where they’re checking to make sure the list that the childcare provider has matches with the school has and where the children are supposed to be. They taken steps to address that.”

The bus driver involved has been taken off his route and is being given further training.

There has been no word on any disciplinary action being taken by the board against school staff.