THE LEDGER-STAR
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 21, 1994 TAG: 9409210595
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: HAMPTON LENGTH: Short : 37 lines
School officials are buying two-way radios for 80 yellow buses because of an incident in which a 3-year-old mentally retarded boy was handed over to a stranger on the first day of school.
Officials also will require detailed identification badges on pre-schoolers, kindergartners and special education students who can't talk. The radios and badges will help drivers contact parents if they have a question about a student rider.
Carol Patterson's son, Jonathan, who cannot talk and attends special education classes at Bryan Elementary School, was turned over to a neighbor when he got off a school bus on Sept. 7. Patterson said she missed the bus because she thought it was going to pull up to her house a block away.
A neighbor, Leola Eley, mistook Jonathan for another boy she was supposed to pick up at the bus stop and took him to her house two houses from the corner. She said she realized her mistake when the boy she was supposed to be watching came to the door about a half-hour later. She said she hadn't gotten that boy's name or paid attention to what he looked like when she told his mother weeks earlier that she would baby-sit.
In the meantime, Patterson called school, transportation and administration officials, but no one knew where Jonathan was. Eley said her grandson recognized Jonathan late in the afternoon and pointed out his house down the block. At 5 p.m., nearly five hours after Jonathan was supposed to be home, Eley walked him to his house. by CNB