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6-year-old dropped off early by school bus, left alone for an hour in freezing cold in Chicago's south suburbs

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Suzanne Le Mignot
Suzanne Le Mignot
Anchor/Reporter
Suzanne Le Mignot serves as CBS2 Chicago's weekend news morning anchor and weekday reporter.
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Suzanne Le Mignot

/ CBS Chicago

A south suburban mother is demanding answers from her son's school and school bus company, after her 6-year-old was sent home early and left alone in the cold for more than an hour.

Akira Willis said her 6-year-old son, Josiah, was dropped off at the corner of 192nd Court and Chestnut Drive in Country Club Hills on Wednesday afternoon and left there for more than an hour.

"My neighbor called me around 4:30, 4:33, and was saying that she had my son, and I was confused," she said.

Willis was confused because, while that's where he's normally picked up and dropped off by his school bus, at the time Josiah was supposed to be at Sykuta Elementary School in the after-school tutoring program. 

Josiah attends the after-school program Tuesday through Thursday and is brought home afterward by bus.

Willis later learned Josiah told his school he wanted to go home and not go to tutoring that day, so they put him on the bus, and he got dropped off by the bus driver at his regular stop.

"He was saying, 'It was a man that dropped me off. He just let me get off the bus with nobody there,' and I'm like, 'What!?' So that's when I immediately called the school. I said, 'So you guys just letting 6-year-olds get off the bus by theyself without no parent being present?' I said, 'Since when we do that?'" she said.

Willis said she called Illinois School Bus Company in Crestwood to check their protocol. She said she was told drivers are supposed to bring a child back to school if an adult is not at the stop.

She also said she's submitting a Freedom of Information Act request for the school bus video to learn the exact time her son was dropped off and how long he was outside in the cold.

"I just hope they do better. It's sad. I can only imagine how many more kids this could happen to. I can only imagine how he felt in that moment when he was looking for me," she said.

The bus company, Country Club Hills School District 160, and Sykuta Elementary did not respond to requests for comment.

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