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Tiffany Williams said her son, Dante, who is autistic and does not speak, was returned home unharmed.
But a day later, the 26-year-old city mother is still upset.
"Had that been me who had left my child in a car," Williams said, "they'd have locked me up and thrown away the key."
On Wednesday afternoon, Williams said she was on the porch of her Manor Street home, waiting for the school bus to bring Dante home around 3:40 p.m.
When the bus didn't come, Williams said she thought maybe it was just running late.
Perhaps there was a change in schedule, she said, and she had just forgotten.
But by 4:30 p.m., Williams said, she was in a panic.
She called Carter & MacRae Elementary School, where Dante attends Intermediate Unit 13 classes for special-needs children.
There was no answer.
She called another number listed in the phone book for the School District of Lancaster's transportation office.
The person who answered the phone said it wasn't the transportation department, but gave her the number of Shultz Transportation Company, which is contracted to provide bus service to city schools.
Williams called the bus company.
The woman who answered the phone said Dante's bus was parked in the lot on Wabank Road, but the driver had gone home for the day.
Williams said the woman who answered the phone said she would go and look for the child.
She found Dante in the bus.
"I said, 'What condition is he in?' and she said, 'I can't give you that information,' " Williams said.
Another bus driver drove Dante home, arriving shortly before 5 p.m. and telling the worried mother her son had been "sound asleep" when they found him.
"I am very upset," Williams said. "When I was trying to get them, nobody was there. … They should have had somebody there to answer the phones.
"What if something had happened?" Williams asked, concerned that her son would not be able to help himself in such a situation.
A representative of the bus company did call her Wednesday night, Williams said, and school officials came to her home Thursday to speak with her.
Heidi Kraft, a spokeswoman for the school district, said the bus driver involved was immediately terminated.
On Thursday morning, Kraft said, other school bus drivers were given a review of the company's protocol — which includes a check of the bus at the end of the route.
"We're really glad the child is safe and unharmed," Kraft said, calling it "an unfortunate incident."
A spokesman for Shultz Transportation Company declined comment Thursday.
As for Dante, after staying home on Thursday, he's getting back on the bus today for school, his mother said.
According to newspaper records, there have been two similar incidents of city children being left on school buses.
Earlier this year, a special-needs student was left on a school bus, and in 2002 a sleeping child on a bus went unnoticed at the end of the day.
