Mother Shannon Jennings Hernandez said she was not notified that her son was not in class.
"He leaves this house about 7:09, he takes a special education, you know, little smaller buses," Jennings Hernandez said.
At around 3:40 p.m. Monday, Hernandez says she got a call from the district's director of transportation telling her that her son Isaac had accidentally been left on the bus that morning and hadn't been in class all day.
"He let me know that he was ok and that he was hungry. They made sure to give him something to eat and then they let the nurse come and make sure he was medically OK," she said.
Attendance is taken every day at 10:00 a.m., according to the district's website. Hernandez explained that normally the school will let parents know if their child is absent.
"At 10:30 I would get a phone call or a text message, and sometimes I'd get an email that says your child was marked absent today," she said.
Thankfully, she said Isaac is OK, but the outcome could have easily been much worse.
"The weather could have been Texas-usual weather. He could have got off the bus, you know, and wandered," she said. "I was terrified because at some point, I know there was a way to alert them sooner. There has to be something better if that's where we're sending our kids."
The mother said he son still doesn't understand why it happened.
"He was questioning, you know, a lot of questions on the bus. He was nervous about being left again...he's like, "I don't ever want to be left on the bus again, mom."
The school district said it is putting additional checks and fail-safes in place to prevent incidents like this from ever happening again.
The district also says it has taken steps to self-report the incident to the appropriate oversight agencies.
The driver and bus-aide have been put on administrative leave until further notice.