Lawsuit: Las Vegas kindergartner placed on wrong bus, dropped off ‘alone and distressed’

A lawsuit filed against the Clark County School District this week alleges that a kindergartner wandered around an extended-stay complex “alone and distressed” after being placed on the wrong bus.

The child was a student at Wasden Elementary School in August 2023, when he was placed on a different bus than the one for which he was tagged, according to the complaint filed Monday by lawyers for Manuel Alejandro Gomez Ayala and Maria Jose Garcia Garcia on behalf of their son.

The boy was tagged for a “green” bus, which would have dropped him off at a stop where his babysitter was waiting. Instead, the child was placed on a “yellow” school bus, and dropped off at a Siegel Suites on Martin Luther King Boulevard, where there were no adults to pick him up, the complaint said.

The boy “wandered the unfamiliar surroundings of Siegel Suites alone and distressed,” before an employee at the property found the boy, took him into the main office and called police, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit accuses the school district of negligence and said that the family endured “emotional distress, mental anguish, and suffering.”

The district said in an email that it does not comment on pending litigation.

When the child initially did not get off at the right stop, the babysitter asked the bus driver, who had no answers, and also did not report the incident, according to the suit. The babysitter told the parents, who called the school district and its transportation services and police to report him missing, the complaint said.

Ayala immediately left work to drive around the school looking for him, and Garcia went to the school to report him missing, according to the lawsuit.

Contact Katie Futterman at kfutterman@reviewjournal.com. Follow @ktfutts on X and @katiefutterman.bsky.social.