PONTIAC, Mich. (WXYZ) — Jasmine Bell lives in Pontiac and works as a pizza delivery driver.
The 32-year-old has six kids, one of them is Amari, who was diagnosed with autism last year.
"I switched to afternoons to go around all my children’s schedules, so for this to happen, this is devastating," Bell said.
Bell says her 5-year-old son Amari gets picked up and dropped off from school every day, but the problem is the bus is never on time. According to Bell, the school bus on average is late 30 minutes per day. But it became a huge problem when the bus arrived an hour and 15 minutes late.
"The bus is supposed to be here by 4:45 pm, no later than 5 p.m. At about 5:20 p.m., I get a text that the bus hasn’t arrived yet, can you call and find out? I’m calling the school, I’m calling Trinity Transportation, it's going straight to their voicemail," Bell said.
The security footage provided by Bell shows the bus arriving at 6 p.m.
"I just want answers as to why I’ve gotten excuses, (saying) oh they are short-staffed — we’re shot staffed at my job, this is every job in America after the pandemic. I get it, but in the same token, he is someone who can’t fight or defend for himself, so I have to do that for him," Bell said.
To make matters worse, while 7 Action News and Bell were talking, Amari’s bus arrived, stoped for a second and drove off without dropping him off.
Seeing the bus headed in the opposite direction, Bell quickly calls Amari's school, Owen Elementary School.
Two minutes later, the bus turned around and dropped off Amari.
The School District of the City of Pontiac's Heidi Hedquist says driver shortage is to blame.
"We’ve had a lot of backup drivers coming in to assist us due to the shortages and we’ve had spare drivers covering routes from Detroit, they don’t know the area," said Hedquist, Pontiac school district's communications director.
As for why the school couldn’t notify Bell earlier, Hedquist said, "The school jumps on information as soon as they receive it. I don’t know where the disconnect was again. Perhaps, the driver was unable to get to an area where it was able to contact, perhaps there was a situation where multiple calls were being made."
Meanwhile, the Pontiac school district is actively looking to hire more bus drivers. They've even increased the pay and signing bonus. In the meantime, Hedquist says they are also exploring other options like introducing an app to track school buses.
