WARSAW — A local mother is speaking out on Facebook after her autistic son was left on a Warsaw school bus for hours.

According to Gloria Miller, her 3-year-old son Dawson was left alone on a school bus for almost five hours yesterday, Dec. 20. Dawson attends Leesburg Oswego Preschool and has a special education teacher from Warsaw Schools that works with him. On Wednesday, Dawson never made it to school, instead his bus was parked in the garage after school drop-off with Dawson still strapped into his seat.

“I got a phone call from his afternoon bus driver about a different issue about transportation on Friday. When I asked her if she’s not bringing him home today she said she had been at his school and his teacher came out and said he never made it to school that morning,” said Miller.

The school has apologized to Miller but she hopes to meet up with officials to discuss the situation further and prevent this from happening to any other child.

Representatives of Warsaw Community School Corporation did not confirm or deny the incident. They released the following statement, “Warsaw Community Schools utmost priority is to ensure the safety and security of our students. When proper policy and procedure is followed, the bus is inspected by the driver at the end of the route to ensure no student is left on the bus. This incident is currently being investigated and the substitute driver of the route has been suspended pending the completed investigation.”