Houston ISD mother questions district after son found on Metro bus, mile away from school
HOUSTON - A Houston ISD mother is questioning the district after her son went missing for an hour after school on Monday. Monique Daniely said her 6-year-old son, who is a car rider somehow ended up on a METRO bus. He was found a mile away, nowhere near his home.
"Above all things else, the last phone call you want to receive is ‘we can’t find your son," said Bruce Parham, the students father.
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A normal school day turned into turmoil when Whidby Elementary staff told Monique Daniely her son was missing after school.
"So I came here to pick my son up from school, and I was waiting for about five minutes when they told me to come inside, and that’s when they told me they couldn’t find him," said Monique Daniely, the students mother.
Her son, 6-year-old Logan Parham, who gets dropped off and picked up by his parents everyday, ended up on a city bus.
"I said, my son is not a bus rider. He’s a car rider. What do you mean he caught the METRO bus?" said Daniely.
School staff told Daniely they saw Logan walking with a group of kids on security camera.
"They didn’t see him get on the bus. They told me the rolled back the cameras and just saw him walk out the school," said Daniely. "I was devastated. I was panicking. I was like my son could be anywhere in Houston."
Logan’s father tried to help them track down their son.
"I didn’t know that they didn’t have systems in check for these types of situations. But we found out that that’s something they kind of had to look in on," said Bruce Parham.
Daniely believes her son got in the wrong transportation group and no one caught him.
"They said that the lady that watches out for the kids and knows the kids and where they belong wasn’t there that day," said Daniely.
An hour later, a parent found Logan at the Corder Place Apartments, which are about a mile from the Whidby Elementary. They called school staff and told them where he was.
"A parent called the school and said ‘hey, we found a kid wondering around our apartment complex, where do he belong," said Daniely.
That’s when Daniely rushed to pick up her son.
"So I went to go pick him up off the campus. He had to be about 5-10 minutes away from the school," said Daniely.
Logan's parents said they aren’t happy with they way the school handled the situation.
"He could have gotten hit by a car. He could have got kidnapped, like so many things could have happened to him," said Daniely.
"I know for sure someone should be held accountable, as bad as it sounds. Somebody should, because at the end of the day, this could have been the last day that I saw my son," said Parham.
FOX 26 Houston reached out to the Houston Independent School District for comment. HISD responded saying, "Student safety and security are our top priority and primary responsibility at every campus, every day. The District is aware that an elementary school student was allowed to board a bus when they should have been picked up by their family. We take any issues that jeopardize student safety very seriously, and we are taking steps at the campus level to ensure this does not happen again. Specifically, the campus will be updating bus and dismissal protocols for all students. We understand the distress this caused for our student and their family, and we will support them through this process. The District will continue to monitor progress and improvements at the campus moving forward."