Parents demand answers after child let off bus 1 mile from home

By Brendan Tierney

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    MITCHELLVILLE, Tennessee (WSMV) — Parents are demanding answers after their daughter was let off the school bus by herself more than a mile away from her house in a rural part of Sumner County.

The Tisdale family said their high school student got distracted on the bus and missed her stop along Highway 259, but they never expected the bus driver to just let her out down the road.

Joshua Tisdale said even eh would not want to do the 1.1 mile walk on the busy road, let alone his 15-year-old stepdaughter.

“She’s not an adult. She can’t make that decision,” Tisdale said. “When she is on that bus, she’s under their responsibility. She should be dropped back off where she was picked up.”

Tisdale said drivers often speed and pass each other on the rural stretch of highway near their house. There are no sidewalks and both sides of the road drop off, so there was nowhere for the Portland High School student to safely walk.

“If they are doing that to a 15-year-old, what are they doing to kids that are younger and don’t know any better?” Tisdale said. “Get picked up on the side of the road, somebody can hit them with a car or anything.”

Sumner County Schools released a statement about the incident that said:

“The driver let the student out at a stop that was not her regular stop to walk home, without informing Transportation dispatch or the student’s parent. We are grateful that the student arrived home safely, however, this was a clear violation of district procedure. The driver will be reprimanded and retrained by our Transportation Department.”

Tisdale said he wants more to be done to keep children safe.

He is concerned this scary situation his stepdaughter was in could have been much worse because her phone battery died shortly after she got off the bus and the family did not know where she was.

“She could have never made it home. Luckily, she did. Thank God, but anything can happen,” Tisdale said. “You hear about bad things happening every day. It can be friends, family, random stranger, whatever nowadays.”

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