Published: Saturday, October 4, 2008
Son’s bus ride upsets parents
A missing Lake Stevens 5-year-old was found safe after he got on a school bus when classes were over.
LAKE STEVENS -- Anthony Barbano should not have been on a bus.
Every school day, Anthony's mom, Yvette Barbano, picks her 5-year-old up at Skyline Elementary in Lake Stevens and drives him home.
On Friday afternoon, for an unknown reason, the kindergartner climbed onto a school bus, which then left on its route.
As usual, Yvette Barbano was waiting outside the school for her son at 2:55 p.m. When his classmates marched out the door without him, Barbano dashed inside, searching for Anthony.
"I started running the halls, looking for my son," the stay-at-home mom said. "The classrooms were empty."
She spoke to someone in the school office, then called police.
Immediately, school staff radioed all bus drivers and told them to look for Anthony, Lake Stevens School District spokeswoman Arlene Hulten said. Within two minutes, he was located on Bus 23, she said.
The bus driver told Anthony to sit in the seat directly behind her and stay on the bus, Hulten said. At the end of her route, she'd return him to school.
However, Anthony followed a group of other kids off the bus without the bus driver noticing. As the bus driver pulled away, she realized Anthony was gone, drove around the block and returned to get him, Hulten said.
By that time, someone who lives nearby had heard Anthony asking for help and called 911.
The police called Barbano, and she rushed to her son.
When she arrived, she climbed onto the school bus and wrapped him in a hug. They cried, she said.
She and her husband, Tom Barbano, are furious about the incident. They say their son, a cautious jokester who loves Spider-Man, was scared and doesn't want to go to school anymore. They plan to pull him out of Skyline and enroll him at a private school.
"I'm going to contact a lawyer and (find out) what rights I have and what rights my child has and who I can hold accountable for what happened," Yvette Barbano said. "I waited a good hour not knowing where my child was. He's 5 years old, walking the streets of Lake Stevens. That should never have happened."
The district has procedures that are supposed to prevent students who walk home or ride home with parents from getting on buses. During the first few weeks of school, kindergartners wear color-coded tags that correspond to how they get home from school. The walkers also wait on a different side of the school than bus riders, Hulten said.
A substitute taught Anthony's class on Friday, and that may have lead to some confusion, she said. District officials plan to review, and possibly change, their plan to make sure substitutes know which children ride the bus.
The district doesn't plan to discipline the bus driver or the substitute, Hulten said.
"The main thing that's important to us at the school district is that within two minutes of Mom saying, 'Anthony didn't come out,' we knew where he was," she said. "Obviously we never want to lose track of where a child is ... but we were able to find him pretty quickly there. However, we will be taking a look at our procedures and doing everything we can to make sure every student gets to where he or she should be."
Reporter Kaitlin Manry: 425-339-3292 or kmanry@heraldnet.com.
Every school day, Anthony's mom, Yvette Barbano, picks her 5-year-old up at Skyline Elementary in Lake Stevens and drives him home.
On Friday afternoon, for an unknown reason, the kindergartner climbed onto a school bus, which then left on its route.
As usual, Yvette Barbano was waiting outside the school for her son at 2:55 p.m. When his classmates marched out the door without him, Barbano dashed inside, searching for Anthony.
"I started running the halls, looking for my son," the stay-at-home mom said. "The classrooms were empty."
She spoke to someone in the school office, then called police.
Immediately, school staff radioed all bus drivers and told them to look for Anthony, Lake Stevens School District spokeswoman Arlene Hulten said. Within two minutes, he was located on Bus 23, she said.
The bus driver told Anthony to sit in the seat directly behind her and stay on the bus, Hulten said. At the end of her route, she'd return him to school.
However, Anthony followed a group of other kids off the bus without the bus driver noticing. As the bus driver pulled away, she realized Anthony was gone, drove around the block and returned to get him, Hulten said.
By that time, someone who lives nearby had heard Anthony asking for help and called 911.
The police called Barbano, and she rushed to her son.
When she arrived, she climbed onto the school bus and wrapped him in a hug. They cried, she said.
She and her husband, Tom Barbano, are furious about the incident. They say their son, a cautious jokester who loves Spider-Man, was scared and doesn't want to go to school anymore. They plan to pull him out of Skyline and enroll him at a private school.
"I'm going to contact a lawyer and (find out) what rights I have and what rights my child has and who I can hold accountable for what happened," Yvette Barbano said. "I waited a good hour not knowing where my child was. He's 5 years old, walking the streets of Lake Stevens. That should never have happened."
The district has procedures that are supposed to prevent students who walk home or ride home with parents from getting on buses. During the first few weeks of school, kindergartners wear color-coded tags that correspond to how they get home from school. The walkers also wait on a different side of the school than bus riders, Hulten said.
A substitute taught Anthony's class on Friday, and that may have lead to some confusion, she said. District officials plan to review, and possibly change, their plan to make sure substitutes know which children ride the bus.
The district doesn't plan to discipline the bus driver or the substitute, Hulten said.
"The main thing that's important to us at the school district is that within two minutes of Mom saying, 'Anthony didn't come out,' we knew where he was," she said. "Obviously we never want to lose track of where a child is ... but we were able to find him pretty quickly there. However, we will be taking a look at our procedures and doing everything we can to make sure every student gets to where he or she should be."
Reporter Kaitlin Manry: 425-339-3292 or kmanry@heraldnet.com.
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