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When her 5-year-old daughter, Ahlana, didn’t get off at her bus stop last week, Lacy Eguia spent more than an hour fearing her kindergartner had been kidnapped, molested or killed.
She later found out her daughter, Ahlana Reichert, had slept through her stop, had gotten off at North Adams Community Schools’ bus transfer station and wandered – confused and crying – down a nearby road until a car full of teenagers picked her up and drove her back to her Decatur home.
Eguia is incensed and wants the district to change its policies. She also says she believes her family deserves an apology from the bus driver who let the Southeast Elementary School kindergartner off the bus at a transfer station at Bellmont Middle School.
School officials say an apology from the driver is unnecessary and that, while unfortunate, situations like Ahlana’s are inevitable.
“When there’s that many children riding school buses, sometimes, unfortunately, this does happen,” said school board President Gary Giessler, who was a principal for 39 years. “I realize that that experience is scary for any child. Every precaution is absolutely followed so that it doesn’t happen, but on a rare occasion it does.”
Officials are making no change in district policy, they say, but the superintendent has apologized to Eguia, and transportation officials offered to give the 5-year-old extra attention during her bus rides.
According to Eguia, she first noticed Ahlana was missing at 3 p.m. Sept. 9. She had just returned from taking out the trash and thought it strange that Ahlana, who usually gets off the bus about 2:50, was nowhere to be found.
Worried but not frantic, Eguia called other parents to see whether they’d seen Ahlana. Hearing nothing, she called her daughter’s school, where officials started their own search.
Nearly an hour later, Eguia was told by officials that their search yielded nothing and it was suggested Eguia file a police report. During that conversation, a call came in on her second line from a college student who said she and some high school students had spotted the girl on Piqua Road near its intersection with Monroe Extended – a third of a mile from the middle school.
“She was bawling her eyes out,” said Tori Furhmann, a sophomore at Bellmont who was one of the teens in the car. “She said she had gotten off the bus at the middle school and she didn’t know where she was. We thought she was too shy to ask any of the adults for help or something.”
Ahlana was unsure of her address, but the students found her mother’s contact information inside a folder in her book bag.
Eguia said she believes the bus driver should have either walked Ahlana to the correct bus or taken her home.
Larry Carty, business manager for North Adams Community Schools, said the district is looking into what happened, but he said the drivers can’t leave their buses when there are children inside. He also said the transfer station has several monitors who help guide children to the correct bus. Although Ahlana didn’t transfer at the middle school station, other kindergartners typically do.
“She should have gotten on another bus to go home,” he said. “We’re still trying to sort that all out. … The only person who knows what happened is her – Ahlana.”
Southeast Elementary Principal Becca Lamon is discussing possible solutions with Eguia, Carty said. Meanwhile, the driver is keeping an extra eye on Ahlana.
“Now they’re making sure my daughter sits right next to the bus driver,” Eguia said. “That’s fine. I know that my daughter is taken care of. But will they miss someone else’s kid? Every other parent that I talk to is appalled by this story.”
