GUILDERLAND — After the third day of school this year, a 4-year-old kindergartner did not get off the bus at the stop in front of his home where his father was waiting for him. He was missing for an hour.

“Our son was eventually discovered at a daycare program about five miles from our home,” his mother, Rachael Mormino, told the school board on Sept. 30.

She outlined seven flaws in the district’s dismissal process and told the board, “The multiple failures of the district could have resulted in a terrible tragedy. Our son could have gotten off at any stop and attempted to cross one of the many busy roads. A stranger could have picked him up.

“We’re grateful that he was found at that daycare rather than with the stranger who may have preyed on him. I would like to see all of our elementary schools implement procedures. I will ensure this does not happen to any other child in their care.”

Superintendent Daniel Mayberry broke with board tradition to respond to public comment in the moment on Sept. 30.

“We have taken steps to address the concerns that you have to streamline and ensure that our procedures are consistent across our elementary dismissals,” he said.

Guilderland has five elementary schools. Mormino’s son attends Lynnwood Elementary.

Mormino said, first, that her son’s teacher did not hand him off to an adult on the bus but had just “pointed him in the right direction” and could not confirm he had boarded the correct bus.

Second, she said, the bus driver did not have a list of children who boarded or, if he did, must not have taken attendance.

Third, when a call went out on the radio to all the bus drivers to check for the missing kindergartner, he was not located.

Fourth, once the school discovered what bus he was on by checking cameras and the driver of that bus was told to pull over and find him “it was reported back that he was not on that bus and no child met that description.”

At that point, her husband called 911, Mormino said, and was told the school had already notified law enforcement. Her husband, waiting in the Lynnwood vestibule, was given “limited updates,” Mormino said, but “could overhear everything going on.”

“It was later found out that he was, indeed, on that bus,” said Mormino of her child.

While the Morminos live near Gade Farm, their son was found on Schoolhouse Road, near Stuyvesant Plaza, more than five miles away, “so he not only had successfully boarded the wrong bus, but he then got off at a random stop without anybody noticing,” she said.

Seventh, she said, “A staff member at Lynnwood called every stop on the bus route and finally discovered he was at the last stop. The daycare had accepted that child off of the bus who was not part of their program.”

“I’m here tonight,” Mormino told the board, “because the school failed my child.”

She went on, “We did receive an apology from both the principal and the superintendent with promises of change. The school informed us they are going to start a checklist. I gave several other suggestions such as tags for kids with bus number and first name, personnel at every bus checking kids off, more staff present at dismissal, etc.”

Mayberry described some of the safeguards the district is putting in place.

“We are relabelling our buses with numbers and symbols to help make it easier for our younger students to identify what bus they should be getting on,” he said. “We will be working on procedures for providing a label or tag with their name and what bus run they should be on to help us do a visual check.”

He went on, “We have retrained staff both in the building and on the buses as well as to the procedures that should take place as well as the transportation center to ensure, when a radio call goes out, that we do in fact … shut down until that child is found.

“And, if your bus is identified as the bus that the child is on, you need to find a safe place to stop to ensure that they are on the bus. We call the bus specifically when we know the child got on that specific bus. So those are some of the procedures.”

Mayberry concluded, “We were very fortunate on that day that it ended well. Your child was found safe, unfortunately with strangers … We did fail you on that day and we do take that very seriously and are aimed to move forward so it doesn’t happen again.”