4-Year-Old Boy Left On School Bus For Two Hours

ROY, Utah – A family in Roy is calling for action and demanding answers after their boy was left alone on a school bus for two hours.

There are protocols in place to make sure something like this doesn’t happen, but parents Janel and Daniel Hulbert said those protocols weren’t followed.

There are cameras on the buses to watch for this sort of problem, but the cameras on this bus weren’t working.

Like most 4-year-old boys, Miles is a master at imagination. Earlier this month, that imagination was put to the test.

“He said it was hot,” father Daniel Hulbert said. “He said he went to the jungle, I assume there were some trees nearby.”

Miles got on the bus, was buckled in and headed off for preschool at Midland Elementary.

“I thought he was at school the entire time, but apparently he was not,” Janel Hulbert said.

Neither the bus driver nor the aide spotted Miles before they got off.

He was left alone for two hours.

It wasn’t until the driver got back on the bus that Miles was found.

The parents said the school never told them what happened.

“When he got off the bus and he came and told us, and we’re like “Oh, how was school?” and he said he had not been to school,” Janel Hulbert said.

Daniel Hulbert added, “It’s really hard as a parent to know you put your child on a bus with some expectation they’ll be taken care of.”

Those expectations include safety measures. “At least two protocols by the bus driver and the aide were completely ignored and skipped,” Janel Hulbert said.

They’re supposed to walk the bus front to back to make sure it is empty. New this year, because of COVID-19, every seat is expected to be cleaned after each route. It is unclear if that ever happened.

Officials with the Weber School District released a statement that said, “While we were investigating this incident, it was discovered the camera on this particular bus was not operational and hadn’t been recording footage for a period of about two years.”

District officials said they are fixing that, but Daniel Hulbert said that’s not enough.

“He is still, honestly, scared of the bus,” he said.

The Hulberts want the bus driver and the aide fired and the Weber School District to make sure this never happens again.

“I don’t want any other parents or any other children to go through that,” Hulbert said.

Finally, the Hulberts said the district should invest in new technology that would require the bus driver walk to the back of the bus to turn off an alarm whenever the engine is turned off.