A 6-year-old who fell asleep on a school bus and woke up at a McDonald’s was found wandering around a busy roadway in Georgia, prompting an investigation by the DeKalb County School District.
Khloe, a student at Flat Shoals Elementary School, fell asleep on the bus on the morning of March 25. When she woke up, she was all alone at a parking lot outside McDonald’s.
“She’s 6 years old. We need to take better care of our kids,” Peggy Mitchell, the grandmother of the girl, told Fox 5. “I was devastated. She could’ve been killed or kidnapped.”
A school official said that Khloe’s bus driver drove to McDonald’s after dropping students off at the school and didn’t realize there was still a student on the bus.
Khloe woke up inside the bus while the driver was away from the vehicle. She got off and started walking along the road, trying to get to school.
A passerby, a teacher, saw the girl, picked her up, and took her to the school, prompting a teacher to call Mitchell.
“She called and she asked ‘How did she get to school?’ and I told her ‘On the school bus. I placed her on the school bus myself,'” Mitchell said. “And she said ‘I’m sorry somebody just walked her into the school.'”
A DeKalb County Schools spokesman told Fox 5 that the bus driver has been removed from duty while a full investigation is conducted.
“The district will strongly reemphasize to our drivers our expectations for student safety, as well as the penalties for failing to meet that standard,” the spokesman said.
Bus driver removed from duty after leaving 6-year-old onboard https://t.co/tRDHPR2zTG
— FOX 5 DC (@fox5dc) March 27, 2019
Driver Abandons 26 Children at Gas Station
An eastern Pennsylvania school bus driver is facing charges after police allege she drove erratically while under the influence of alcohol with 26 juveniles aboard, then abandoned them and the bus at a gas station.
State police in Bethlehem said Lori Ann Mankos, 44, of Walnutport is charged with 26 counts for child endangerment and one count for driving under the influence and careless and reckless driving.
Mankos was transporting 26 students for the Northampton Area School District on March 8 but was alleged to have been driving erratically while under the influence, police said.
She was driving high and middle school students home when some students noticed she wasn’t going by the route she followed daily and she was also agitated. She flipped off at students and also swore at them, reported WFMZ News.
“The major thing on the ride that threw everybody off was when there was a right-hand turn and when she took it, she was going far too fast,” student Mason Persiani said.
“She ended up being halfway into the opposing lane of traffic,” Persiani said.
“That was probably the scariest point in the ride, and at the point, my heart was racing. I was pretty nervous.”
In the video, students can be heard yelling at the driver to pull over and saying that they feel unsafe. The driver then gets mad, pulls over, and walks off leaving the young students stranded. https://t.co/zV8tPiTyA7
— WTVM News Leader 9 (@WTVM) March 3, 2019
“Call the school, this is not even funny,” a female student said in the video. “Pull over!”
At this point, the agitated driver refused to pull the bus over to the side of a road. “She told us to ‘Go [expletive] yourselves,’” Persiani told WFMZ News. “And flipped us off, you know, stuck her hand in the air and flipped us off.”
After this, she asked students if they wanted her to stop the bus. “Do you want, if I just pulled over and called everybody’s parents to pick them up?” the driver asked, as seen in the video.
“Yes,” students replied. She eventually parked at a Sunoco station, handed the keys to a gas station employee and walked away from the scene.
The bus and 26 juveniles were left unattended until school officials, Moore Township police, and state police arrived. Mankos was later arrested at her home.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
