Linda Russell said her first-grade boys, Brendan and Joshua Conover, spent 45 minutes alone in their front yard on Friday, crying and sweating in the 93-degree heat.

The children had been registered to attend an after-school program at the YMCA, but their names did not appear on the list yet, so they could not go. The school secretary, Patty Gizzo, tried calling Russell, but there was no answer. Despite an objection from five year-old Joshua, the secretary sent the boys home on the bus.

The driver dropped them off at the entrance to their trailer park, alongside a busy highway with no sidewalk. The boys managed to find their way home, but no one was there to let them in. Eventually, a seven year-old neighbor noticed what was happening and alerted her teenage babysitter, who watched the boys until Russell arrived.

At no time did anyone at the school call the boys' emergency contacts, Russell said.

"When you can't reach a parent, you don't assume they're home," she said of the secretary's actions. "You assume they're not home, and you need to contact somebody else.

Rome City School Superintendant Jeff Simons acknowledged protocol had been broken, but he would not say by whom. When asked if the secretary had done anything wrong, he said he could not comment on personnel matters.

Simons said the district will review procedures to ensure a similar situation doesn't occur in the future.

Russell has a lawsuit pending.