Parents say school bus left kids to walk home from Target parking lot after breaking down

WARR ACRES, Okla. (KFOR) — Parents of several Putnam City Public Schools (PCS) students say their kids were left to walk home in the rain from a Target parking lot after their bus broke down. The district maintains that isn’t what happened.  

It was cold and rainy Friday afternoon when Brandy Wyatt got a call from her son, who was riding the bus home with fellow students from Putnam City Public Schools’ Cooper Middle School.

“Telling me that the bus was broken down and they were wondering if I could come get them,” Wyatt said.

She said her son told her the bus driver stopped the bus in the parking lot of a Target store at Northwest Expressway and Rockwell Avenue because something was wrong with it mechanically.

Wyatt said he told her the driver called a second bus out to come pick the students up.

Stephanie Abernathy’s sons were on the bus too.  She says they called her when the second bus showed up.

“I received a phone call from my son and he said that the bus was too full,” Abernathy said.

Abernathy and Wyatt said their sons told them there weren’t enough seats for them and eight other kids on the second bus, and they would be walking two miles home from Target.

“And I told them no, you need to stay,” Abernathy said. “My sister was getting off work and so I told her that she needs to go and pick up the boys.”

Abernathy and Wyatt said their sons and the other students went inside the Target to shelter from the rain while they waited for family to pick them up.

“I also called my son's IEP teacher and let her know what was going on,” Abernathy said. “And she got off of work and went to Target and sat with the boys at Target until my sister could come and pick them up.”

News 4 reached out to PCS.

A district spokesperson sent the following statement.

“On Friday, March 8, 2024, a regular route bus had a mechanical malfunction that prevented it from continuing the route once it got to a designated drop-off location.

The bus driver followed proper guidelines, keeping the students on the bus until a replacement bus arrived. Once the replacement bus arrived, a group of students departed the bus and chose not to board the replacement bus that would continue to their assigned bus stop.

A bus driver remained at the bus stop with the students and the original bus waiting for a third bus to arrive. The students were given another opportunity with the third bus to continue to their assigned stop and disregarded instructions again.

Our District’s number one priority is student safety. Our bus drivers take this priority seriously and regularly go above their assigned duties to ensure the safety and well-being of the students on their routes every day.”

Putnam City Public Schools spokesperson

Wyatt said she called PCS’s transportation department and they told her second bus was not empty.

“[They] told me that there was another bus around the corner and they were not done with their drop offs and decided to come through to see if they could pick up the kids,” Wyatt said. “They let the kids off the bus to go on to the other bus. And then were told the bus was full. And so they stood there waiting.”

“From what my sons understood was that the bus that was supposed to come pick them up was full… and that they had no ride to get home,” Abernathy said.

As for the third bus, Wyatt and Abernathy said no one informed their kids it was coming, and they were waiting in the target when it arrived—out of sight from them.

“No one directed them, no one told them anything,” Wyatt said. “That bus driver that broke down should have asked them to get back on the bus and wait for the other bus.”

“They never even called us to let us know that our children were dropped off at target in the rain to walk home,” Abernathy said. “And the excuse that they gave us was that the boys refused to get on the bus… I know my kids know that mom does not let them walk that far away from home by themselves. And I had even told them specifically to not go anywhere. But for them to sit there and say that my kids refused to get on the bus is hard. It’s hard to believe for sure.”