Mom says 4-year-old girl was placed on a school bus, dropped off at a random apartment complex
BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB/Gray News) - A Baton Rouge mother said her 4-year-old daughter was placed on a random school bus and dropped off at an apartment she didn’t know.
Jasmine Johnson said she was preparing to leave work to pick up her child, Camilia, from Jefferson Terrace Academy on Wednesday.
Before she could go, she got a phone call.
“I received a phone call from an apartment complex, and they let me know they had my baby girl,” Johnson said.
A woman on the phone told Johnson her daughter took the wrong bus home and was at the Siegen Calais Apartments, but there’s one problem.
“My child isn’t a bus rider. Then it dawned on me that my baby girl was somewhere. I didn’t know where she was,” said Johnson.
Johnson said Camilia had never ridden a school bus and was supposed to be in after-school care.
In fact, Johnson said she had never heard of the apartment complex her child was at until that phone call.
Johnson lives one street over from Jefferson Terrace Academy, which is about three miles away from where her daughter was at.
“We just moved out here in February, so I didn’t know where she was,” Johnson said.
Johnson said she met with school leaders, and apparently there was a miscommunication that involved a substitute teacher.
Johnson said she met with the principal, and he assured Johnson that they will investigate the situation.
“They brought her to the bus area instead of going by what the teacher left for the sub, which would have then informed the teacher that she belongs in after school care,” she said.
In the midst of the crisis, there was a saving grace.
The children at the apartment complex brought Camilia to the front office after she apparently started crying. An employee at the apartment was able to find Johnson’s phone number because of a form inside her child’s backpack.
Johnson is reminding parents to keep some kind of information on their child in case of an emergency.
“I believe that God ordered her footsteps to stay with my daughter so that I could see her again and be reunited with her,” said Johnson.
Johnson is also pushing the school to make sure this never happens to anyone again.
“Thank God my baby is alive and well. This story could have gone left just like that,” said Johnson. “I don’t want this to happen to another child again.”
WAFB reached out to the East Baton Rouge Parish School District about the situation. A spokesperson responded and issued a statement: “We are aware of the situation. Transportation has launched an internal investigation and we are working thoroughly to determine what occurred. No additional information is available at this time.”
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