LAKE STEVENS, Wash. – When Yvette Barbano went to pick up her 5-year-old son after school, he was gone.

"He gets out at 2:50 and they put him in lines and they walk to the front of the school where I'm waiting. Pretty soon my nephew came out of his class… and my son did not," she said.

KING

Anthony said he was scared when he couldn't find his home.

Yvette's son Anthony is in kindergarten at Skyline Elementary School and she picks him up every day.

The kids are sorted into two lines after school, but somehow he got into the wrong line and ended up on a bus.

"He had a substitute today and the end-of-the-day procedure may have been a little different from what normally occurs," said Arlene Hulton, Lake Stevens School District.

"I went to the bus line and I got scared. I got on the bus and couldn't find my home," said Anthony.

After his mom alerted the front office, the school located the bus and her son within minutes.

But that's when the bus driver made a mistake. She told him to sit down and that she was going to bring him back to school. But there were several stops along the way, so at one of the stops when a lot of children got off, he got off with them.

When the bus driver noticed, she raced back to find the boy, but fortunately a man had already found Anthony along the road and called police.

"His face was red, his eyes were swollen. He had been crying for a while and he hugged me and said 'I'm scared' and I just hugged him too and said 'I'm glad I found you,'" said Yvette.

"We work really hard to make sure this doesn't happen. We'll look at our systems again," said Hulton.

But as far as the Barbanos are concerned, the school will not get a second chance. They feel the school principal and the bus driver were unapologetic and have decided to switch Anthony to another school.