An autistic California freshman needed hospital IV fluids after waiting on a non-air-conditioned school bus in extreme heat, and his mother says the district left special-needs kids at risk.
Marisol Wojciechowski says her son Gabriel sat on a school bus without air conditioning while temperatures in Chula Vista hit 97 degrees during an early September heat wave.
The special-needs freshman at Hilltop High School in San Diego County later went to an emergency room for severe dehydration, the New York Post reported, drawing on the mother’s account to NBC San Diego.
Gabriel gets out of school about 30 minutes before other students because of his special needs. His mother says he then waits on the bus for everyone else, unable, because of his autism, to communicate when he is overheating.
She first noticed he was not well in early September. The symptoms were hard to miss.
"He had nosebleeds, really bad headaches and he didn’t want to do nothing. And then when he would get off the bus, he was lightheaded and I was like, ‘are you okay?’"
Wojciechowski said she moved fast at home.
"Right away I would put ice pack on him on his neck and gave him water."
It was not enough. She took him to the emergency room.
"He was very dehydrated. They had to keep him there to give him IV fluids,"
Wojciechowski also confronted the arrangement on the bus itself. She says the driver told her that once Gabriel was released to him, the student could not get off, and that sitting there in high heat was normal.
She rejected that on the spot. She boarded the bus and sent her son to wait in a car with air conditioning.
"The bus driver was telling me that once he’s released to him, he couldn’t get off the bus. And I was like, ‘no.’ I got on the bus and said ‘Gabriel, go get in the car. Sit in the car. There’s air conditioning and I’ll be right there,’"
Her demand of Sweetwater Union High School District is simple: stop treating a hot bus as an acceptable holding pen for kids who cannot speak up for themselves.
"I want them to put the kids first. Leaving them on the bus is not safe, not even for five minutes during the heat,"
She is asking the district for additional safety precautions. Outreach to the Sweetwater Union High School District superintendent for comment did not draw an immediate response.
The sequence is straightforward. Early release for a special-needs student. A wait on a bus without air conditioning. Heat high enough that the city hit 97 degrees. A child who cannot report distress. Nosebleeds, headaches, lightheadedness. An ER visit and IV fluids. A parent forced to override a driver who called the practice normal.
School districts exist to move children safely, not to park vulnerable students in metal boxes while adults treat the risk as routine. When a mother has to climb onto the bus and pull her autistic son into a car with AC, the procedure has already failed.
Officials who will not answer basic questions about heat, early release, and special-needs transport leave parents to fix the danger themselves. Taxpayers fund these systems so kids come home upright, not so families discover the failure in an emergency room.
Put the students first, or admit the policy was built for adult convenience instead.
