Durham mother upset about dismissal error that left her second grade child unaccounted for

Kalika Moore is the mother of a second grader at Pearsontown Elementary.

Not only is her son not supposed to ride the bus, but last Wednesday he was placed on the wrong one — leaving his mother panicked and searching for over an hour.

When Moore went to pick up her son to take him to daycare, after waiting in the carpool line for 30 minutes, she was told he’d been placed on the bus.

"You're telling my son is lost, right now? Nobody knows where he is. I literally dropped him off here this morning and you cannot find him," said Moore.

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"I zoom out the parking lot to go meet Bus 224 to find out my son isn’t on the bus either."

Moore said she was terrified.

"I panicked. I literally roamed around looking, and I’m trying to figure out anywhere he’d be comfortable being."

She called his daycare and learned he wasn’t there either. Moore went back to the school, but was not happy with Durham Public Schools' response.

"It just felt like they were blaming a 7-year-old for what adults should have been responsible for," she said.

After about an hour, her son’s daycare called, saying a different bus had dropped him off there. Moore said she believes the school failed at multiple levels.

"The bus driver did not check her route. The school didn’t check what bus was there," Moore said. "It’s like we completely missed the process all the way across."

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She met with the deputy superintendent and principal on Monday, but she believes more needs to be done to keep children safe.

"It’s definitely inexcusable to hear somebody say, ‘I don’t know where your child is,’" Moore said.

"It doesn't show that you care about my child, nor, can I trust you."

In a statement, Durham Public Schools said district protocols were followed in the incident.

"The student was never alone, or unsupervised by a DPS employee, and was located quickly due to safety protocols and processes in place. The principal and central administration met with the parent to clarify protocols and reassure her of our safety procedures."