GPS Exposes Shocking NYC Bus Fiasco

Yellow school bus with stop sign extended — Photo: Prostock-studio / Shutterstock

Six nonverbal special education students sat on a New York City school bus for more than four hours last December while the driver got lost and the matron never called for help, a city investigation found.

Story Snapshot

Six nonverbal students were expected at P.S. 289 in Brooklyn by 9:00 a.m. but did not arrive until 1:25 p.m.
The driver, Eric Chery, reportedly drove to two wrong schools before dispatch redirected him.
GPS records contradicted Chery’s claim that every child was picked up by 10:00 a.m.
A parent’s tracking tags showed two kids still moving around Brooklyn near midday.
One child was found lying in the bus with her diaper and leggings removed after urinating on herself.

Four-Hour Delay Exposed by City Investigators

The Special Commissioner of Investigation found that six nonverbal special education students were supposed to reach P.S. 289 between 8:20 and 9:00 a.m. on December 16. Instead, the bus did not pull up until 1:25 p.m., a delay topping four hours. For families who trust the city to safely transport their most vulnerable kids, that gap represents a total breakdown of basic responsibility.

Investigators say driver Eric Chery got lost and drove to two different schools that were not on his route before dispatch finally pointed him toward the right building. This was not a brief wrong turn. It was hours of wandering with six children who could not speak up and tell anyone something was wrong.

Driver’s Account Contradicted by GPS Data

Chery reportedly told investigators that every student on the bus had been picked up by 10:00 a.m. But Department of Education GPS tracking placed the bus outside one student’s home as late as 10:59 a.m., nearly an hour after he claimed the route was finished. That gap between his statement and the city’s own data is a serious red flag for an agency that insists it can track every vehicle moving special needs children.

A mother’s own precautions added more proof the official account was wrong. She had placed location-tracking tags inside two of her children’s backpacks, and those devices showed the kids still moving through Brooklyn well into the late morning, long after they should have been safely in class. A parent’s smartphone caught what the city’s own systems failed to flag in real time.

Matron’s Silence Compounded the Crisis

Bus matron Germina Thomas, who had worked nearly two decades in the job, told investigators she never communicated with Chery during the entire ordeal. She also admitted she never called the school, the bus depot, or anyone else for help as the hours ticked by. One phone call could have ended this nightmare in minutes. Instead, nobody with direct knowledge of the crisis lifted a finger to report it.

Child Found in Soiled Clothing After Ordeal

When the bus finally arrived, investigators reported that one girl had urinated on herself, removed her own diaper and leggings, and was found lying on the bus floor in wet clothing. That detail alone shows exactly what happens when the adults responsible for nonverbal children simply stop paying attention. These are kids who cannot say “I need help” or “we’re lost.” The entire system is supposed to compensate for that. It didn’t.

Employees Barred Amid a Citywide Pattern of Failure

Consolidated Bus Transit placed both Chery and Thomas on administrative leave, and the investigation recommended problem codes that would bar them from supervising Department of Education students or working with city vendors again. That’s a necessary step, but it does little to address why a four-hour disappearance of six disabled children happened in the first place.

This is not an isolated glitch. New York City’s Office of Pupil Transportation received more than 150,000 complaints in the 2023-24 school year alone, an 82% jump from just two years earlier, including over 16,000 specifically about special education transportation. The city comptroller has already called the bus system “abysmal,” noting officials lack the tools to even investigate why these failures keep happening. Taxpayers are funding a transportation bureaucracy that cannot reliably track its own buses or protect the children who need the most protection. Parents are left strapping tracking tags onto their kids’ backpacks because the city they pay taxes to can’t be trusted to do its one job.

SCHOOL BUS SCARE: Six nonverbal students spent more than four hours on a school bus before arriving at their Brooklyn school, according to a city investigation.#News12 #Brooklyn #SchoolBusScare https://t.co/h6kx4P5vy7

— News12BK (@News12BK) October 17, 2026

Families of nonverbal and disabled children depend entirely on city employees doing their jobs correctly, since their kids often cannot describe what happened to them. When a driver gets lost twice, a matron stays silent for hours, and GPS data gets ignored, the result is a child found soiled and alone on a stopped bus. New Yorkers deserve real accountability, not just two staffers barred after the damage is already done.