Lehigh Acres 5-year-old put on wrong bus after first day of school

LEHIGH ACRES, Fla. (WINK) — A Lehigh Acres mother kept her children home from school after she says her 5-year-old son wasn't waiting for her at parent pickup on his first day of school.

Jennifer Pettit told WINK News it took two hours to find him on a bus he wasn't supposed to be on. She said she didn't know where he was until almost 6 p.m.

"My mind did go there and think, did I just lose my son?" Pettit said. 

The situation unfolded just one month after Pettit moved to Lehigh Acres from out of state. 

"Amber Alert. You know, this could be more serious than they're even letting on," Pettit said. "If no one is telling me anything, they're suspecting that my five-year-old is on a bus that shouldn't have been there to begin with. But they can't tell me for certain."

Pettit told WINK News the Green Meadow Elementary School staff told her that her son was probably on a school bus, but couldn't tell her specifics on where he was. She said she then called Lemuel Teal Middle School to let them know there was an emergency and she would be late picking up her daughter.

"I found out she was waiting outside, and I told her she needed to go to the office, where she was told that she needed to leave unless she had missed her bus," Pettit said.

Pettit said her daughter was waiting outside until being picked up at 5:45 p.m. On their way back to the elementary school, she says she got notified that her son had been found.

"It was a relief to have him. But when I picked him up, he's covered in urine and had to go to the restroom, and he wasn't taken care of," Pettit said. "And it's really sad that even after all of that, I don't know what happened."

The Lee County School District provided a statement addressing the incident. A staff member accidentally placed the student on the bus instead of bringing them to parent pickup, according to the district.

When the parent alerted school staff, they checked the campus, contacted transportation and determined the child was safely on a bus. The parent was notified that the bus would return to school once the route was complete, and staff waited with the parent until the child arrived on campus, the district said.

The School Resource Officer was engaged by the school to help with the situation. Staff saw no evidence that the child was wet with urine, and no mention of this was made at the time, according to the district.

The district also stated that students at Lemuel Teal Middle School do not wait outside past 4:45 p.m. Thirty minutes after dismissal, students who have not yet been picked up are brought into the front office until their parent arrives.

Pettit said she wants answers as to what happened on her son's first day of school.