WAKE FOREST - A school bus driver resigned today after a parent complained that he had returned her 6-year-old boy to a bus stop and left him there alone.

Charlie Taylor, 61, had been driving for Wake County for 15 years, said school spokesman Bill Poston.

The resignation came after TV news reports appeared about the incident. The parent, Lisa McGlohon, complained that her son Brady, 6, was returned to his bus stop in Wake Forest last week after she had put him on the bus. The child, crying, went to a neighbor's house.

Brady had gotten on the wrong bus, Poston said. So Taylor took him back to his bus stop even though Taylor's bus was going to Brady's school, North Forest Pines Elementary.

Poston said Taylor did not follow proper procedure in returning Brady to the bus stop.

The episode began when McGlohon drove Brady to the bus stop on Wednesday, July 16.

The bus pulled up, and Taylor, a substitute driver, opened the doors. He asked if the boy was going to North Forest Pines Elementary School.

"I said, 'Yes, sir,'" McGlohon said.

Brady got on the bus, and McGlohon said she told him to be a good kid. Then, the bus drove off, McGlohon said.

The next thing she knew, her neighbor called her, saying Brady had just knocked on her door. The neighbor said Brady was pale and had been crying.

"My heart sank," McGlohon said. She couldn't figure out how Brady got there because she'd put him on the bus.

Her neighbor took Brady to school, McGlohon said, because she didn't want her son to see how upset she was.

Brady later told her that when he got on the bus, he told the driver he was supposed to be on the "red route," but this bus was the "purple route."

The driver then turned around and dropped him off at the bus stop and told him another bus would be coming.

McGlohon wants to know why the driver did this, since he was going to Brady's school anyway.

"He literally endangered by child," she said. "I want to feel safe in putting my child on the bus."

A report about the incident appeared Wednesday on WRAL-TV. McGlohon said someone from the school system's human resources department called her afterward to say that the incident was under review. He also told her she would most likely never know the outcome.

Now, McGlohon drives Brady to school every day, which makes her late to work.

"He doesn't want to ride the bus," she said.