Snow Keeps Some St. Paul Students At School For Hours Past Final Bell

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Some students are still stranded in St. Paul schools because the snow crippled bus service.

Many St. Paul parents are wondering where their children are Monday night.

A problem with buses in at least four St. Paul schools has many wondering why school wasn't canceled and why weren't they told earlier that their children were stranded with no way to get home.

Elementary school students at Paul Wellstone School in St. Paul did what they could to pass time, as some waited more than four hours for their buses to pick them up.

Pictures taken by a parent show the children getting snacks and playing games.

Staff stayed to help students deal with the uncertainty of when they would be picked up to be taken home.

"Back and forth, back and forth for the last hours wondering where she is," Stephanie Anderson said.

Anderson's 5-year-old Eva Marie has been stranded at Mississippi Creative Arts School since 4 Monday afternoon.

As of 9 Monday night her child was still not home.

Anderson says St. Paul Public Schools need better communication with parents.

"Text message, email, there are several forms of communication that they could have used just to let us know, 'Hey, what's going on. Hey, your daughter -- don't worry about the ambulances and the police that you hear. It's not the bus broken down, she's still at school,'" Anderson said.

Some parents say if they had been contacted earlier they would have made arrangements to get their children, instead of worrying about their safety.

St. Paul operates on a three tier system.

Buses pick students up beginning with high school students at 2 p.m., 3 p.m. for junior high and at 4 p.m. the little ones get a ride.

It took some buses three to four hours to drop students at home before they could even begin their other routes.

Staff at some schools were pushing buses out of parking lots and up hills to try and get them going.

Some special education students are still stranded on buses with their paraprofessionals, and parents are so upset because they can't find their kids. We're told some are stuck on buses in snow banks.