"Dealing With a Lot of Kids" — Internet Responds to Mom Whose Kindergartner Was Put on Wrong Bus

A mother shared the scare she experienced after her child ended up getting on the wrong bus back home. TikTok user Bray (@braybabe96) posted a viral clip about the experience that accrued over 53,000 views on the popular social media application.

In it, she delineates how she was sent on a wild goose chase looking for her kindergarten-aged kid and details the tense moments that took place until she was finally reunited with her son.

Numerous folks who replied to her video, however, thought that she was being a bit too harsh on school administrators and staff.

Bray begins her video by speaking directly into the camera. "Story time. I sent my 5-year-old who started kindergarten on Tuesday, to school this morning on the bus. Him and his older brother, who is in the second grade. They go to school all day, everything's fine, cool," she tells viewers.

But as it turns out, not everything was cool when it came time for her kindergartner to come home. "Drop off time. I come to pick them up off the bus, same place I drop them off at. Same bus driver. My older son gets off of the bus, says hi to me, and everything like that. And then looks at me and proceeds to ask where my younger child is," she says.

Initially, she thought that her other kid was still on the bus; however, this wasn't the case.

"I would assume on the bus. Every other child filters off the bus, and me and the bus driver are just kind of standing there, staring each other down. He looks at me, I look at him, and he looks at me again," the mom tells her viewers.

After this brief stand-off, the bus driver finally recognized something was amiss. "He goes wait, you're supposed to have one more. Yes, I am supposed to have one more. I have another child who rides this bus, where is he?" she asks.

Following this exchange, Bray ended up hearing the last thing any parent wants to hear.

"Into which he proceeds to tell me that he's not on the bus, and they don't know where he's at. So they get on the radio and find out that his teacher put him on the wrong bus. Thankfully, the bus driver did not let him off this wrong bus that he got on," the TikToker says.

It appears that the school had protocols in place in case something like this happened, and Bray was contacted by the school, alerting her to her child's location. "So, dispatch calls me and tells me that the bus that my son got on will come drop off at this bus stop in about five minutes."

Unfortunately, the person driving the bus her kindergarten-aged kid was placed on, must've not been aware of this stop. Either that, or it wasn't communicated to them that they should have dropped her kid off at the stop Bray was waiting at.

"I stand there, I wait, I wait, I see the bus come by, and it drives right past me," she relayed.

Bray went on to detail how she contacted the school's transportation department in order to be reunited with her child. "I call the transportation district again and the school. The school tells me that they are meeting me at the cross streets which are like five to seven minutes run from my house. So I book my a-- over there," she says.

Because she hustled to get over there as soon as possible, she ended up "out of breath." Bray then said that when she finally arrived at the cross street there wasn't a bus there. To make matters worse, the school then informed her that they were unaware of where her child was located.

"There's no f--king bus. So I call the school again. And they're like, 'oh, we don't know where he's at.'"

They chalked up their lack of knowledge to the bus driver not answering his phone calls.

"Ten minutes go by, it is now about half an hour from when my child should have been dropped off at home and my other one was. By this point I am freaking out, because where the h--l is my child. He is 5 years old, he should not be on the wrong bus. What is the school doing?" she asks.

"I digress. Anyway, they finally come and drop him off, and the bus driver has no other words except sorry. What am I supposed to do with that? Like, if a child goes missing, what are you supposed to do with that information of: sorry, he got on the wrong bus?" she asked viewers tuning into her clip.

Several people who replied to Bray's video thought that the mom should've shown the school a bit of lenience when it came to her missing child.

One person, who specified that they're both a mother and a teacher thought that Bray could've been more understanding of the situation.

"Mom + Teacher: You respond with 'Thank you for keeping my child safe and ensuring he makes it to the right location," and then double-check with his teacher to make sure she has the correct bus number for tomorrow. Also, remind your child what bus number they ride and remind your older child to double check when they get on the bus to make sure the younger child is on the bus," they wrote.

Another remarked, "It is scary, but they are dealing with a lot of kids. Please allow some grace," they said.

Someone else who said that they're a bus driver replied that there are a lot of children for them to keep track of and that her kid was ultimately kept safe, even if the school didn't get her child to her on time.

"As a bus driver, please do not blame the driver. It's the first week of school. We haven't learned all of the kids' names yet. They are all excited at the end of the day, running up the steps, talking to each other and us. it is very chaotic, and sometimes a child slips by that isn't supposed to be there. It's never happened to me, but it did happen to a friend of mine during summer school this year. We are trusting that the staff is putting each kid where they belong, and sometimes mistakes happen. Thankfully, the driver realized the mistake and didn't let him off the bus to wander around lost," they said.

What do you think? Was Bray allowing the fear of her potentially losing her child to transform into misdirected anger at the bus driver and her child's school's administration? Or was she ultimately in the right for being as upset as she was?