‘No Child Should Have to Go Through That’ – MASHAHER

The child was apparently left on the vehicle without food for five hours as temperatures reached as high as 94 degrees

A 5-year-old girl in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana, got on a school bus ready for a day of summer school on Thursday, June 27, but she reportedly did not leave the bus until school was out — five hours later.

Staff left the girl on the bus after it transported her from Cecil Picard Elementary School to LeBlanc Elementary School around 7:30 a.m. local time, local outlet KATC reported.

Summer school wraps five hours later, at 12:30 p.m. So, as temperatures soared to 94 degrees, per data from The Weather Channel, and her classmates commenced school, the young girl apparently sat alone on the bus.

“She didn’t get breakfast, she didn’t get lunch, she was on that bus in this hot heat for five hours,” her mom, Donyel Rolle, told KATC.

The girl’s dad, Raynard Rolle, added: “That’s crazy, no child should have to go through that.”

School officials later confirmed to KATC that the girl was left on the bus, but only after Donyel and Raynard reached out. In fact, had the concerned parents not asked their daughter about her day, they may not have learned of the incident at all, the outlet reported.

“She said, ‘I did have a bad day,’ and she told me, ‘I got stuck on a bus.’ In my mind, I was thinking she got stuck on the bus for a small amount of time, someone probably noticed, and someone got her,” Donyel told the outlet. “But I was still furious because we were not notified of any of it.”

“With further questioning with her, we learned that she was on the bus the whole five hours,” she added.

Raynard recalled that at first, “I was like, ‘This can’t be real.’ My wife kept asking her questions over and over to make sure it wasn’t a joke and she was telling us detail to detail.”

After contacting school officials, the parents had “one conversation,” during which their daughter’s story was confirmed — although they were not allowed to watch the security footage of the bus themselves, they told KATC.

“Basically, a man — I think he’s the assistant superintendent and safety guy — said they were watching the video of the bus and confirmed that our daughter was 100 percent correct, she did get left on the bus for five hours,” Donyel reportedly told the outlet, “and that’s really the only conversation we’ve had with them.”

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The superintendent of the Vermilion Parish School System, Thomas Byler, has been informed about the incident involving the Rolles’ daughter, he confirmed in a statement to KATC.

“We were made aware of the incident and the procedures and protocols regarding disciplinary action of school personnel were immediately put into place,” the statement said.

Raynard and Donyel told KATC they think new procedures should be put in place so that no child ever goes through what their daughter did.

“I think justice would be to prevent this from happening again,” Donyel said. “There needs to be a mandatory type of rule that when you’re transporting any type of children, small or big, once they vacate the bus, they need to look.”

PEOPLE reached out to the Vermilion Parish School System and the Rolles for comment about the school bus incident.

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