Overview

• A 13-year-old autistic student from New Britain was driven to Danbury, roughly 40 miles away, and reunited with his mother at a Southington 7-Eleven after about three hours.
• The mother said dispatch told her the bus’s GPS had failed, and parents report using iPhone location tools or AirTags to track children because of routing and communication breakdowns.
• The school district placed the boy on alternate transportation not run by First Student, and the superintendent said the contractor was not ready for the start of school as officials consider financial penalties.
• In a separate case, a nonverbal, wheelchair-dependent student was taken to the wrong school and arrived around 10:45 a.m., with his mother reporting lasting behavioral distress.
• First Student apologized and detailed steps such as bringing in out-of-state drivers, naming a location manager, offering hiring bonuses, and deploying real-time route tools, while the district reports steady progress with staffed support lines and improved on-time performance.