JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A Duval County family is demanding answers after their 7-year-old daughter was left behind inside a school transportation van for more than an hour.
On April 22, Yara Kennedy, a first grader, never showed up at her usual bus stop after school. Her parents, Rashaad and Jontaye Kennedy, say they became alarmed when she still wasn’t home by 4 p.m. She was eventually found in the back of a Student Transportation of America (STA) van — alone and parked in a bus yard on Market Street.
“I’m just happy she’s still alive,” her father told Action News Jax. “Because kids… sometimes they don’t make it, especially with the weather.”
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Yara’s mother said she made multiple frantic calls to STA before the company informed her that her daughter had been located.
“Management discovered her, and they were able to contact us and said they found her,” said Jontaye Kennedy. A bus manager later drove Yara home — in the same van where she had been left behind.
“Because she’s 7, she didn’t understand the magnitude of everything,” her mother added. “She was afraid because she knew it was different from her normal routine. She didn’t know where she was.”
Duval County Public Schools called the incident “unacceptable,” saying the student’s safety was endangered. STA confirmed the driver failed to follow its mandatory sleeping-child check procedure and was immediately fired.
Photos of Yara shared by her parents show a bubbly, energetic child — a personality her family says has dimmed since the ordeal. Her mother said Yara had previously expressed feeling uneasy about the driver, who had been on her route for less than a month.
“She didn’t trust the van driver very much,” Jontaye Kennedy said. “Kids have a sixth sense of people who they like or don’t like.”
Yara was finally dropped off at 5 p.m. Her parents now say they will be personally driving her to and from school.
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