Mom: Uniondale first grader left alone on school bus for almost 30 minutes outside driver's home

A Uniondale mother is demanding answers after she says her then 6-year-old son was left alone and unattended for 30 minutes on a school bus outside of the driver’s home.

Michael Sellars, now a second grader at California Avenue Elementary School, is still traumatized by the June 17 incident in which a Guardian Bus Company driver apparently failed to notice that he was still on the bus before driving home after completing his route, according to his mother, Natalie Sellars.

Michael, she said, now refuses to take a bus to or from school and is in therapy following the incident.

'Too scared to get back on the bus'

"At night, he comes into my bedroom and wants to sleep with me, which he’d stopped doing since he was 3," Sellars said. "And when he sees a bus, he goes, ‘Mommy, I don't want to go on that bus.’ He’s too scared to get back on a bus. He’s worried they’ll leave him again."

Corey Muirhead, executive vice president of Oceanside-based Guardian Bus Company, said the driver in question, whom he declined to identify, was immediately fired.

"We sincerely apologize," Muirhead said of the incident. "We have a zero-tolerance policy for a child left behind. It shouldn't happen. But the driver is no longer employed by us."

In a statement, Uniondale Union Free School District Superintendent Monique Darrisaw-Akil said the district cannot discuss specifics of Sellars' case.

"However, what we can say is that the district took immediate action to ensure the bus driver in question was removed from all future Uniondale School District bus routes," Darrisaw-Akil said. "Additionally, all district protocols and procedures were followed in terms of responding to the child's and the family's concerns and needs subsequent to the incident."

Transport Workers Union Local 252, which represents Guardian drivers, didn't respond to a request for comment.

Alone for nearly 30 minutes

Natalie Sellars said Michael, then in first grade, typically stays at the California Avenue school for an after-school program.

But on June 17 — the eve of Michael’s 7th birthday — the after-school program had ended for the year and Michael was instructed to take the bus home.

Michael and several other students on board were supposed to be let off at a stop on Greengrove Avenue, where the boy would be met by a babysitter.

But the driver, Sellars said, skipped the stop and let some of the older students on board off at the next stop. Michael, seeing an unfamiliar location, stayed on the bus.

The driver, apparently unaware that Michael was still on the bus, then drove to his home on Waverly Place in Uniondale, a short distance from Sellars' home, and went inside, she said.

When Michael didn't arrive home, Sellars called the child, who has a cellphone for emergencies.

"He told me, 'mommy, the bus stopped and I'm on the bus by myself,'" said Sellars, who was at work at Henry Schein, a distributor of medical and dental supplies, in Woodbury at the time of the incident. "I said, 'How is that possible?'"

Michael was able to share video of his location with his mother, who recognized a baseball field at Cedar Street Park in the background. She then called 911.

School officials were able to locate the driver's home address and Michael was safely evacuated from the vehicle, she said.

Dashboard video of inside the bus, Sellars was told, shows Michael was alone in the vehicle from 3:39 p.m. to 4:06 p.m.

Guardian fleet in good standing

The incident, Sellars said, could have been so much worse.

Michael, who has asthma, did not have an inhaler in his bookbag at the time of the incident, she said.

"He was left alone for almost 30 minutes," Sellars said, adding that the driver never apologized for the mistake. "What if something had happened to him? What if he had gotten off the bus by himself?"

The Uniondale incident has echoes of a previous episode with a Guardian bus driver on the first day of the 2024 school year.

In that incident, a 5-year-old East Meadow boy was dropped off at the wrong bus stop after his first day of kindergarten in an unfamiliar neighborhood more than 2 miles from his Eisenhower Park day care center.

 A good Samaritan in a passing vehicle found the boy wandering on Merrick Avenue, four-tenths of a mile from the bus stop, and stopped to assist. The child was uninjured. 

Guardian owns and maintains a fleet of more than 500 buses and mini wagons, and services Nassau school districts that include East Meadow, Oceanside, Bellmore-Merrick, Baldwin, Freeport, Lawrence, Malverne, Rockville Centre, Uniondale, Valley Stream and Hewlett, according to company and union literature.

The company’s fleet is in good standing with the state Department of Transportation’s semiannual bus inspection program, officials said, and there are no active investigations against Guardian.

The state Department of Motor Vehicles said it was unable to state whether any Guardian drivers have had their licenses suspended or revoked in connection with on-duty performance behind the wheel. 

By Robert Brodsky

robert.brodsky@newsday.com@BrodskyRobert

Robert Brodsky is a breaking news reporter who has worked at Newsday since 2011. He is a Queens College and American University alum.