A Cleveland first-grader was dropped off nearly 40 minutes early by her school bus driver on Friday morning, left to wander alone and crying along busy Kinsman Road until a stranger found her and drove her home. The girl, a student at Cleveland Arts and Social Sciences Academy, arrived home more than 20 minutes before her scheduled drop-off time, according to her mother and the bus company.
Mari Richardson told Cleveland 19 News that she was still preparing to walk to the bus stop to meet her daughter when the bus had already come and gone. Instead, it was Tiyonna Betts who found the girl walking alone and crying on Kinsman Road, where the child told Betts she was lost and that the bus driver had dropped her off. Betts put the girl in her car and brought her home, and Richardson said she was grateful the woman had stepped in.
The stretch of Kinsman Road where the girl was found is not an ordinary neighborhood street. A one-mile section near East 140th Street was described as a high-crash segment, with 67 fatal and serious-injury incidents recorded from 2016 to 2020 in city VisionZero data, according to Black Girl in CLE. The city planned 100 asphalt speed tables citywide; the first three were installed on East 140th Street south of Kinsman in early June 2024. WKYC reported that 85 percent of vehicles on targeted streets travel 31 mph or faster under free-flowing conditions.
Company Acknowledges Policy Violation
Rightway Transportation, the company that operates the bus route, said dropping the girl off nearly 40 minutes early without a parent, guardian, or authorized older sibling present violated company policy. The company confirmed the first-grader was released at her correct stop but without anyone there to receive her, and it apologized for the incident, accepting responsibility for what it called a safety-procedure failure. The driver was disciplined and removed from the route, the station's report states.The company said the driver has since completed additional training with management staff on student release procedures, and that it is now requiring in-service safety training for all drivers on the safe release of kindergarten and first-grade students.
Ohio Administrative Code Rule 3301-83-13 addresses school bus routes and stops but does not state a prohibition on releasing kindergarten and first-grade students without an adult waiting at the stop. Rightway Transportation is the bus company and has an active USDOT number.
Mother Seeks Charges, Loses Trust in Bus Service
Richardson filed a police report and said she wants to press charges. She said she can no longer trust the school bus to safely transport her daughter and is now seeking other ways to get her to school. Her legal options track with Ohio's child endangerment statute: under Ohio Revised Code Section 2919.22(A), the duty-of-care offense applies to a parent, guardian, custodian, person with custody or control, or person in loco parentis—not every person—and is generally a first-degree misdemeanor, subject to specified exceptions, carrying up to 180 days in jail and a $1,000 fine when no serious injury occurs, according to the Ohio Legislative Service Commission. That standard requires proving reckless disregard of a known risk, not simply an accident.
Cleveland Arts and Social Sciences Academy, the tuition-free K-8 charter school the girl attends, is located at 10701 Shaker Blvd. and is managed by ACCEL Schools.
Part of a Wider Pattern Across Northeast Ohio
As part of its response, Rightway said it has contacted its GPS provider and routing software companies to implement a parent-facing app for tracking children on their routes, and that it is reviewing its procedures and reinforcing expectations with transportation staff. The move mirrors how other transit operators have reacted to a string of similar failures across the region this year. In Hoodline's August report, a 7-year-old Cleveland Metropolitan School District student was mistakenly placed on the wrong bus on her first day of school, leaving her parents searching for 58 minutes before she was found safe.
Earlier, a 5-year-old in nearby Mayfield Heights was dropped at the wrong bus stop alone near busy Mayfield Road and wandered through an apartment complex before a resident alerted police; the district was reviewing its procedures. And back in March, a substitute driver in Copley was terminated after failing to perform mandatory visual post-trip seat checks required under state rules, leaving a 6-year-old locked inside a bus garage after the route ended. State rules call for bus-safety instruction within the first two weeks of school for K-3 students who use transportation, under Ohio Administrative Code Rule 3301-83-09.
Whether a tracking app alone can prevent another child from being released onto a street like Kinsman Road without anyone there to meet them remains an open question for parents and regulators watching how Rightway and similar contractors respond in the weeks ahead.
