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A local mother is thankful her son with special needs is safe after he arrived home hours late from school.

Late Disabled Child Has Miami Mother Worried Sick

WSVN

A local mother is thankful her son with special needs is safe after he arrived home hours late from school.

Ayelet Bortunk lived through a parent’s worst nightmare when her 4-year-old son, who has Down syndrome, did not arrive at home from Fienberg Fisher Elementary, Tuesday.

The boy travels home from school on a school bus each day and usually arrives home shortly after 2 p.m. “This is the public school system, where I entrust my child. He goes there every single day. I rely on them to bring him home to me,” said Bortunk. “When it’s 2 hours and 40 minutes that he doesn’t show up at home, I’m scared.”

The Bortunks received a phone call informing them that their son will be late. By 4:30 p.m., Ayelet Bortunk began to panic. “I don’t know what’s going on. He can’t speak for himself, and it’s very difficult to deal with when you’re calling people and calling people and no one’s answering you,” said Bortunk. “I don’t have any phone numbers to call. No one answers the phone.”

Without knowing where her child was, Bortunk dialed 911, and the police arrived at her home shortly thereafter. “The thoughts that had run through my mind, I don’t even want to say out loud. I mean, I was terrified,” said Bortunk.

The Miami-Dade School District said the buses experienced bad traffic on Tuesday and parents were notified of the delay. But Bortunk said that the explanation was not good enough. “He had nothing to eat, he had nothing to drink. He’s not toilet trained,” said Bortunk. “For 2 hours and 40 minutes, and I don’t know what’s going on, I didn’t understand. I didn’t know if he was on the bus. I didn’t know if he was off the bus. I didn’t even know the route. I don’t know where the bus went. I still don’t know where the bus went.”

At 4:40 p.m. the bus finally pulled up to the Bortunks’ home and reunited the worried mother with her son. “Nobody told me he was in school. I could have gone to pick him up. I didn’t know where he was,” said Bortunk. “Am I supposed to get in my car and drive around to every public school bus and pull them over?”

Bortunk hopes for better communication between schools and parents so that no other parent has to go through what she had to. “I felt as helpless as a parent could feel,” said Bortunk.

School administrators have offered an apology to Bortunk for the incident.

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12 Comments

  • Poor Mom

    Can’t imagine the horror, but….. something is wierd. The school called her on Tuesday to tell her there was a problem with the bus. Why didn’t she probe and ask for details. She did know there was a bus delay. And yes, I would have had someone drive around looking for them, drive to the school principals house… something.

  • reader

    change the title of this post. “late” before a person’s name or identity has mroe than one meaning.

  • A FRIEND

    FYI

    I am a friend of this woman. She is a superb mother, Let me give you all some straight facts about how this really happened so you will at least see from her side.
    1) The boy finishes school at 1:50 and usually arrives home at about 2:15. The regular bus that he goes on NEVER SHOWED UP at the school that day.
    2) NOBODY from the school administation ever called her that day. The only call that was received was from the classroom assistant, at 2:50, because she felt bad that he had not gone home yet. The assistant told her that he would be going on the 3:00 bus instead, a different bus than usual, and he would be home a little later. She would have NO WAY of knowing the route that this bus takes. Mind you that she lives 10 minutes from the school. That was the last time she heard from anyone.
    3) at 4:30 – 90 MINUTES LATER – she got concerned and called the school to find out what the situation was. Nobody answered the phone on many tries. She then tried to call the classroom assistant on her cellphone. Again no answer after multiple tries. Understandably, she was then nervous about her son who finished school almost 3 hours earlier and could not be tracked. She called the police station to see if there was any way to get information about the buses.
    4) at 4:45 her husband went to the school to see what he could find out. The prinicipal did not know anything aboout it and had to call the Transportation Compound that takes care of all Miami-Dade school buses. The prinicipal HERSELF told the husband that this Transportation Authority does not do their job well and they constantly have issues with them. When the husband asked what phone number they should call in the future to find out information from the school, he was told, “Oh, you have to call the TEACHERS CELLPHONE”. Does anybody think that is the way the system should work?? You have to call the teachers cellphone to get information? Is that the most reliable way?
    5) at 4:50 the bus finally arrives. The bus driver HERSELF tells the mother that she has every right to be upset because the bus driver called the Transportation Compound multiple times to tell them that there are two small boys in the bus for over an hour (there was another boy that also still hadn’t been dropped off). The bus driver gives the mother to the number of the supervisor at the Compound, who was extremely rude under the circumstances.
    6) The police arrive at her house shortly thereafter. The policeman tells the mother that she has every right to be angry, that there must be a better system in place to let parents know where their child is after a reasonable amount of time. I think that almost two hours late on a 10 minute drive is more than a reasonable amount of time.
    7) The mother is grateful to the school for all they do for her son and she is not looking for one penny from this, she only wanted to publicize this so MAYBE the school would come up with a better way to inform parents when something like this happens.
    We are all protective of our children and we all hear the horror stories that happen when someone forgets a child or G-d forbid worse.

  • she must have been so nervous!!!!!

    The school ows her a big apalagea for this!!!!SHOULDNT THEY LET ALL THE PARENTS THAT HAVE SPECIAL NEEDS FIRST KNOW???????????????
    I cant even imagen what she went threw!!!!!!

  • grammar teacher

    I hope #5 isn’t a graduate/student of one of our girls’ schools. Illiterate bochurim I understand, but I just have the feeling this is the hysterical rant of an over-enthusiastic high school girl.

    PLEASE…I ask posters to use “spell check.” Type in Word first & then cut & paste. We all make occasional typos, but your message is taken more seriously when it’s grammatically correct.

    For the record, I happen to agree with your sentiments.

    Who is teaching our children?

  • nn

    Boruch Hashem, he came home safely. This boy can’t communicate and neither can his school or the bus company.
    Why is there no Jewish school that this child can attend? He should be exposed to Torah and mitzvos even if he can’t yet speak.