TULSA, Okla. — Tens of thousands of local students headed back into the classroom this month for the first day of school.
What is normally a happy occasion turned into a nightmare for one Tulsa mother. Sara Smith said she went to pick up her five-year-old son from school and couldn't find him. She said the school couldn't find him either.
2 News Oklahoma started reaching out to the district around 5:30 Thursday evening, but have not heard back.
“We woke up this morning, we took photos, for the first day of school,” Sara Smith, the mother of the five-year-old son said.
Smith dropped her five-year-old son, Hawk, at MacArthur Elementary School Thursday morning for his first day of kindergarten.
"We took him, me and his dad took him. Dropped him off this morning,” Smith said.
Smith said when she returned at 2:30 p.m. to pick Hawk up, school staff pulled her to the side while they looked for him.
“I wait a little bit of time and finally his teacher comes out and she was like, 'well, we put him in a bus lane to ride the bus home' and I was like 'no… no… no, I filled out all the paperwork, there’s only three people that should be able to pick him up. It should be me, his dad, and his grandma.' I said 'so he should be with me or with one of those three. He should be nowhere else,'" Smith said.
When she asked the school staff which bus route, Smith said they told her the bus driver was on her way back with her son. Smith got short-lived relief, before more bad news.
“By this time, the bus driver has dispatched back in, saying 'he’s not on the bus'," so now they’re running back the cameras and seeing which exit he left out of and they call the bus driver back, double check, make sure that he’s not on there," Smith said.
Smith said school staff began checking cameras -- to see where Hawk may have exited.
“My anxiety is off the charts at this point," Smith said.
Just as the worry began to set in, Smith said the school's office phone rang.
“It’s the police, they say, 'oh, his mom is right here'. I’m like did you find him? She said, yeah the police have him. I’m like where is he? She said he’s a Maplewood Apartments down the street. I was like how did he get there?" Smith said.
Smith said the school told her the bus driver dropped him off at a stop nearby. She and her husband went to the apartment complex, where they reunited with Hawk. Smith said they found him with a family whose child had gotten off at the same bus. She said they took him in and called the police.
Tulsa police confirmed to 2 News that a child was missing and found 45 minutes later. Smith said she's grateful her son made it home safely because she said it could have been worse.
“The cops could have been pulling up to a very different scene than they pulled up to and that’s what I went back to and I explained to the school, you know, when I dropped him off this morning, I trusted you with my child, and that could have been the very last time I saw him,” she said.
Smith said the school principal sent out a text message to all parents, school-wide today asking them to send a note with their children tomorrow specifying how their child will get home, whether it's walking without a parent, taking a bus, or getting picked up by car.
2 News Anchor, Sharon Phillips reached out to TPS to find out what happened.
"So, our understanding is that when school was dismissed and the students split up between walkers, bus drivers and those who are picked up by their parents, this student lined up with the bus riders," says TPS Chief Finance and Operations Officer, Jorge Robles.
TPS says this was a very unfortunate and extremely, unique situation.
The district tells 2 News, it has spoken with that particular bus driver, and is also reinforcing all their safety practices with the other drivers.
Moving forward in the next few weeks, any child who is in second grade or under who rides the bus, will have a red tag placed on their backpack. They will also be given a bus badge to alleviate any confusion.
"I do want parents to understand that we take this very seriously, and we are already taking the steps to make sure things don't happen again," says Robles.
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