Lost, wet and afraid. First day of school a nightmare for one Parrish girl

Dean and Sandra Campbell don’t normally answer their door unless they know who is knocking. Too many weirdos out there.

But last Thursday, a knock at the door of their Parrish home brought a little stranger they thanked God they could help.

Soaking wet 7-year-old Lyla Gallo was standing outside the door, lost and looking for help.

“It was thundering and lightning, and she was out walking and couldn’t get to her house,” Sandra Campbell said. “I knew God must have sent her up to our door.”

Lyla ended up at the Campbells' front door after an odyssey-like journey home from her first day of third-grade at Williams Elementary. After a transportation mix-up resulted in her getting onto the wrong bus home, she rode the bus for more than two hours while district officials worked to reunite her with her increasingly anxious father. Eventually the driver was told to drop Lyla off at the entrance to the Kingsville Lake subdivision where her dad would meet her.

But when the driver pulled up to the corner of Old Tampa Road and Douglas Hill Place, her dad wasn’t there, and an afternoon thunderstorm was in full gear.

Lyla said the driver didn’t say much and just indicated that this was where Lyla should get off. She stepped off the bus into the storm with no idea where she was. The driver had stopped at the wrong entrance to Kingsville, and by the time Lyla comprehended her predicament, the bus was long gone and she was alone.

“I thought I wasn’t going to get home,” Lyla said. “I thought I was just going to die.”

Less afraid of strangers than she was of the storm, Lyla began knocking on doors. The Campbells were the second house she came to, and the couple gave the girl a ride home, more than a mile away.

District spokesman Mike Barber said a transportation department mix-up resulted in Lyla being scheduled to take bus 1033 to school and bus 1032 home. When children arrive at school, teachers write the bus route they are supposed to take home on their hand. A teacher wrote 1033 on Lyla’s hand, Barber said, because elementary school children typically return home on the same route they take to school.

So that afternoon, when Lyla boarded bus 1033, it did not take her home.

Lyla’s mom, Quinn Gallo, said she understands the complexities of transporting thousands of kids home every day, and she doesn’t fault the district for a simple mix-up. She said the staff at Williams and other district officials had met with her to craft a plan to ensure the debacle doesn’t happen again.

But her understanding only goes so far.

“Why would you drop a child off in a thunderstorm two-and-a-half hours late with no one else there knowing that an elementary student’s parents would obviously be worried sick?” Gallo said. “There was no communication, no verification, no double-checking. There were more people than just the bus driver that were aware this child had not gotten off the right stop.”

Barber said there were students waiting on the bus, which is why Lyla had to sit on the bus for two hours with middle school students. He said the driver was not required to make sure Lyla’s father met her at the agreed-upon spot, but since the girl had been riding the bus for two hours it would have been a good idea for the driver to ensure the two connected.

“It probably would have been best if the driver had waited,” Barber said. “If we had to do it that way again, would we? No.”

Barber said the district has not disciplined the driver, but officials are further investigating the incident. District officials followed the bus route from Williams to the Gallo home the next day to ensure Lyla got on and off safely.

“We do have 49,000 students, and every single one got home that day. First days are always traumatic because everyone is doing everything for the first time,” Barber said. “We all hold our breath until the last child gets home. It is not unusual for there to be bus riding mishaps on the first day of school, but we completely understand why the parents are upset.”

This story was originally published August 16, 2017 at 6:32 PM with the headline "Lost, wet and afraid. First day of school a nightmare for one Parrish girl."