I am curious to find out what transportation departments are doing when no one is home to meet there young children. Examples may include calling parent, latch key program returning to school etc.
For us, we call dispatch to call the school or the parent to see where they are. Sometimes, we will drop the rest of the kids off and come back to the stop if the parent won't be there in a couple minutes. If the school cannot get a hold of anyone to get the child, they usually go back to school.
Our districts require a parent or adult to get children under second grade an all special needs students off the bus unless the parent tell the district otherwise.
This has happened twice this school year here and the superintendent/principal was called back to school to babysit until the parent was contacted. He said if this happens again he will contact the state police and have them deal with it.
Normally we do the same as scoutmom2. A few years ago we had parents that were chronically late and the Transportation Supervisor decided to call the Sheriffs Department. They picked up the child and took him Children`s Services. They were never late again.