Boy with special needs, 9, mistakenly dropped off at wrong location

A mother is demanding answers after a school bus driver mistakenly dropped off her 9-year-old autistic boy outside his home.

>> Read more trending news 

Erica Satterwhite said her son, Caleb, was supposed to be at an after-school program. When the boy was dropped off, no one was home, so he was left outside his home, unattended, for three hours.

“I made sure to make them aware that he was to stay in school, so I don’t understand,” Satterwhite said.

Satterwhite said she notified Caleb’s teacher and staffers at Sawyer Elementary School that her son would be attending the after-school program and she would be there to pick him up when the program ended.

But when she showed up, Caleb was nowhere to be found.

“‘He's not here. He didn't ever come today.’ I'm, like, ‘What do you mean?’ They're, like, ‘He didn't come today,’” Satterwhite said.

When she rushed home, she found her son sprawled out on the family’s porch, overheated from the summer temperatures.

Satterwhite said she feared the worst.

“Somebody could have been watching him and took him away and I would have never saw my child again,” she said.

This isn’t the first time this has happened to her son. Satterwhite said this happened at the end of the school year in May.

WSB-TV took her concerns to the superintendent of Marietta City Schools, Dr. Grant Rivera. He admitted the staff made a mistake.

“I'm very aware of the opportunities where we should have seized to do better," he said in a telephone interview.

But when we asked him if anyone would be reprimanded for what happened to Caleb, he said no.

"At this point, based on my investigation I do not believe that there is any personnel action that needs to be taken," Rivera said.

Rivera said the staff has reviewed its procedures and will go above and beyond to ensure that this never happens again.

"They need to take this seriously because somebody's child could end up dead, hurt or anything," Satterwhite said.

About the Author