ELMSDALE, N.S. -- A Nova Scotia mother is speaking out after her eight-year-old daughter ended up 60 kilometres from home after a school bus mix-up.
The little girl was three hours late getting home and her mother blames the bus company.
"I want Stock Transportation gone," says Tracey Reid.
When Reid's daughter didn't end up on the bus that was supposed to bring her home from school on Monday, Reid panicked.
"I called Stock Transportation and asked them where my daughter was and they scrambled," Reid says.
Reid says the bus company told her that her daughter was on a bus in Meaghers Grant, a nearby town, and would be dropped off at the end of the route.
But that's not actually where the bus carrying her daughter was.
"I left work early and was at the bottom of the driveway waiting for her to come home and the principal of her school called me on his way home and actually seen her on a bus on Sheet Harbour Road, which is over 60 kilometres from where Stock Transportation told me she was," Reid says.
Normally, Reid's daughter gets the bus from her school in Upper Musquodoboit to Middle Musquodoboit, where another bus brings her home to Elderbank. But, for some reason, Reid says the transfer didn't happen on Monday.
"It was no fault of hers. I understand the buses didn't connect the way they normally would," Reid said.
In an email statement, Stock Transportation says that the student missed the bus and ended up on a different route.
"The student was not set up in our system to take multiple buses and this led to a delay," said Edward Flavin of Stock Transportation.
Reid disagrees, and says it's never been an issue before.
"(It was) scary, very frustrating, maddening," Reid said. "I was yelling at Stock, 'Tell me where my daughter is!' and, 'Do I need to call the RCMP and say Stock Transportation lost my child?' because they couldn't tell me where she was."
Reid works outside of town and relies on the bus to get her daughter home safely. She says she has discussed backup plans with her daughter in case the transfer bus doesn't show up again.
"It's not an eight-year-old's responsibility to make sure she gets home safely," Reid says. "It is Stock Transportation's. They've been given the responsibility."
The Halifax Regional Centre for Education (HRCE) sent a statement confirming that an extra student was on board a bus after the driver completed his route.
HRCE and Stock Transportation are investigating the incident.