EDMONDS — Rebecca Slaney waited for 30 minutes Tuesday for a school bus to drop off her 8-year-old autistic son, Devin.
The bus never came.
She called Cedar Valley Elementary School in Lynnwood, where Devin had attended his first day of summer school that morning. Then she called the Edmonds School District; then the police.
No one knew where he was.
Devin — who loves his Papa’s dog, Flip, and painting watercolor pictures — was lost.
School officials eventually determined Devin had stepped off Bus No. 2 about 12:30 p.m. at Edmonds Elementary School. His mom and his 10-month-old sister were waiting a half-mile away at Maplewood Elementary School. Devin was supposed to be dropped off there.
“Maplewood (on 200th)” was written in purple on a name tag stuck to his polo shirt.
Bus drivers are supposed to check the name tags to make sure special-education students get off at the right stop, said Debbie Jakala, an Edmonds School District spokeswoman.
Bus drivers also aren’t supposed to let students off the bus unless their parents are waiting for them or have signed a waiver. Slaney hadn’t signed a waiver.
The district is investigating to see why Devin was allowed off the bus.
Panicked, Slaney packed her daughter in the car and drove through Edmonds with the window rolled down, frantically screaming her son’s name. She searched schools and went to parks and the Boys &Girls Club, looking for her boy.
She called his father, who began driving from Anacortes to help with the search. Devin’s grandparents looked. So did police officers from Edmonds and Lynnwood. Around 10 Edmonds bus drivers and the district’s new transportation director, Craig Christensen, also joined in the search, Jakala said.
“Everywhere I looked, Devin wasn’t there,” Slaney said. “I was absolutely panicked. Every time I had to get out of the car I fell on the ground crying. I’m always thinking of the worst case scenarios. I can’t imagine not seeing him ever again.”
Because of his autism, Devin has difficulty communicating. He can talk, but his mom feared he wouldn’t know how to ask for help. He isn’t allowed to walk down his residential street alone. Slaney said he’s never even crossed the street by himself.
At 2:35 p.m. — two hours after Devin walked off the bus — a police officer called Slaney. Devin had been found.
She rushed to the street, four blocks from her house, where Devin was waiting with police officers and the school administrator who found him.
Shaking with tears, Slaney scooped up her crying son and took him home.
She believes Devin got off the bus at Edmonds Elementary because he attends that school during the regular school year. Unable to find his mom, the spiky-blond-haired boy walked toward the house his family had lived in until December. From there, he tried to find his way to his new home.
Slaney estimates her son walked four miles along busy Edmonds streets without having eaten lunch and with nothing to drink.
Devin explains what happened like this:
“I just got off the bus to my school and I was trying to figure out a way back, so I just walked to the old house and I just looked at it and I just passed it and I just walked to a crosswalk and I just went across it and I just kept walking and walking until I just found my principal from my school.”
The woman he thought was his principal was actually a learning support manager who knew a child was missing and, driving by, noticed Devin’s name tag. She approached him and called for help.
District officials acknowledge their staff messed up. They called the parents of special-needs kids in summer school to explain the situation and are working to make sure all staff understand existing bus procedures, Jakala said.
Christensen has personally apologized to Slaney, who is an administrative assistant at a Seattle law firm.
“We are working to investigate the specifics of what occurred,” Jakala said. “We want to assure the student’s mom and all parents that this is serious and we are taking it seriously, but we need time to look into some of the specifics of what happened.”
Devin’s bus driver was placed on another summer school route while district officials investigate the incident.
This isn’t the first time police have helped search for children who have gotten off Edmonds school buses at the wrong stop, Jakala said. When school is in full-swing, district buses transport 10,000 students a day and accidents are bound to happen, Jakala said. She said she doesn’t know how frequently this happens but she said the district is always working to try to prevent it from happening in the future.
Slaney said the district needs to make sure no parent ever has to go through what she went through.
“My job as a parent is to keep my kids safe and healthy and happy,” she said, sitting next to Devin in their living room. “The school district contributed to my failure at that yesterday because he was not safe and he was not happy and he was not healthy. … I understand accidents happen. Buses get into accidents, but they cannot lose children.”
Reporter Kaitlin Manry: 425-339-3292 or kmanry@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
