Mother demands answers after daughter, 7, takes wrong school bus, gets stuck outside

PITTSBURGH — A 7-year-old girl was left outside for more than two hours Wednesday afternoon after she took the wrong bus when she left school.

Amanda Schoedel said she’s furious that her second-grade daughter, Kyah, didn’t get on the right bus when she left Martin Luther King Elementary on the North Side Wednesday.

“I’m very upset. Anything could have happened to her,” Schoedel said.

According to Schoedel, Kyah was supposed to take a bus to Brightside Academy downtown for an after school program, but she boarded the bus that dropped her off near her home on Perrysville Avenue.

Schoedel was working at the time, so Kyah sat on the front step of the house until about 5 p.m. when a neighbor took Kyah inside.

“She said, ‘I don’t know who you are, but I have your daughter,’” Schoedel said. “She was freezing out there for two hours. Finally the neighbor across the street came and picked her up.”

School officials told Channel 11’s Jodine Costanzo that Kyah was put in the correct bus line, but changed on her own to the line that takes her home.

“They said she should have known better and I said, ‘No. You guys should have known better,’” Schoedel said.

Schoedel said she thinks an adult should ensure kids get on the right bus because you can’t always trust a 7-year-old.

“All they said to me was it was my daughter’s fault,” Schoedel said.

A school district spokesperson said they will be more diligent to make sure kids get on the right bus.

WPXI