Adrena Hartzog, 28, said she no longer allows her daughter, Zariah, to ride the school bus. (Image courtesy of the New York Post)
An outraged mother is suing a bus company for $7 million after it dropped her 5-year-old daughter off at the wrong bus stop, leaving her frightened and alone.
Adrena Hartzog of Brooklyn became unnerved when the school bus carrying her daughter, Zariah Watson, never arrived at its usual stop on Flatlands Avenue and 102nd Street, the New York Post reported. She said she immediately phoned her child’s school, Leadership Preparatory Ocean Hill Charter School, but was placed on a long hold.
“Everyone was going home, about their day, while my 5-year-old was missing,” Hartzog said of the 2015 incident.
After calling Boro Transit, the company handling school’s transportation, and receiving little help, the terrified mother called police and went looking for her daughter. She searched the neighborhood high and low until she found Zariah more than 10 blocks away at a busy intersection. She said her daughter was weeping “hysterically” and so scared that she wet herself.
A store owner who spotted the child offered her food and called 911, but Hartzog arrived before officers did, according to the newspaper.
“[Zariah] was crying, she was worried, she was scared, she did not want to return back to the school,” the girl’s mother recalled.
The charter school reportedly told Hartzog that the bus had broken down while dropping off schoolchildren, News 12 Brooklyn reported. Somehow, Zariah was allowed off the bus. Boro Transit gave a different story, however, claiming the driver was doing a “favor” for a parent by dropping a different student off closer to their grandparents’ house.
In her suit, filed in Brooklyn Supreme Court, Hartzog claims the transit company refused to hear her complaint or discipline the driver — who remains unnamed. She said the company argues the driver was allowed to drop the other child off at an unexpected stop but the Post reports that city guidelines forbid students from being left at unauthorized stops.
Drivers who do face a maximum six-month suspension for their first offense, according to the newspaper.
Boro Transit attorney Peter Silverman claimed there was no record of the incident, saying Hartzog’s allegations “do not seem to ring true.” The concerned mother disagreed.
“This is my daughter,” she told Brooklyn News 12. “She’s five. How can you make a mistake like this?”
A representative from the charter school addressed the incident in a statement, saying it was “deeply disappointed” something like this had happened to one of its students.
“We are actively working with the bus company employed by the NYC DOE (Department of Education), which is responsible for the safety of all of the students on school buses, to ensure they do not allow this to happen again,” the representative said.
Hartog said she no longer allows her daughter, who was “depressed and anxious” after the incident, to take the school bus.
