A 5-year-old kindergartner in Texas, who was sent off on the bus for his first day of school, did not return home on the same bus that afternoon, according to his mother who was waiting for him at his stop.
Corey, who goes by CJ, was taken to Faldyn Elementary in Katy, Texas, last Wednesday for his first day of kindergarten, FOX 26 Houston reported. At the end of the day, his mother, Nadine Penn, was waiting for him at his bus stop when it arrived at around 3:18 p.m. only to discover her son was not on board.
"I got on the bus and asked [the bus driver], 'Are you letting the kindergartners off the bus without a parent?' She said, 'No I ensure you I don't do that.' And I said 'Okay well my son's not here,' and she said 'Well that's all the kids,' and she just drove away, she didn't call anyone or anything," Penn told FOX 26.
Penn said she was panicking while rushing to her child's school. When she arrived, she overheard another parent say they were also looking for their child.
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"I was overhearing them saying a couple of buses were having to come back to the school because of overload," Penn told the outlet.
She went back to the bus stop hoping he was among the students on the second trip, but he still never arrived.
More than an hour after her son was supposed to be dropped off, Penn said she received a call from CJ's teacher at around 4:30 p.m. reporting that a random family brought him back to school.
"He said he walked up to the people's car, and they rolled the window down, and he told the dad, 'I'm lost,'" Penn said.
CJ was supposed to be dropped off at Signorelli Way and Franchetti Drive but was instead dropped off in a subdivision near the intersection of Clay and Katy Hockley Cutoff Road, FOX 26 shared. Google Maps show he would have had to walk eight minutes and cross a main street to reach his mother.
"I just wandered in the second neighborhood," CJ told the outlet.
Penn said the school never provided an explanation for her child getting off the bus at the wrong location, but she is now demanding answers.
"I don't have answers. I still don't know what the reason was. I don't have any statements from them, it's frustrating," Penn said.
"I really wish I knew who the family was, so I could thank them because they really saved my kid's life," she added.
Katy Independent School District did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
