Did you get a text message about your child’s bus? Miami-Dade Schools didn’t send it

A spammy text message was sent to Miami-Dade County Public School parents and employees shortly before Friday’s dismissal, alerting them to expect late school buses or no buses at all due to the district’s bus driver shortage.

Miami-Dade Schools didn’t send the message, said Daisy Gonzalez-Diego, a district spokeswoman.

Now the question is: Who did?

Parents, teachers and staff members at multiple schools reported receiving the strange message around 1 p.m.

The text message, which was addressed to parents and had a grammatical error, claimed that due to the district’s bus driver shortage, the afternoon routes would be “running extremely late” and that there “are no guarantee that it will be transportation.”

Just before 2 p.m., the district sent a follow-up message from the same number asking people to disregard the previous text, “which was not sent by M-DCPS.” The district says transportation issues are communicated to parents by their child’s school.

“Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS) is conducting a thorough review of the incident regarding an automated message that was sent out this afternoon. This is not a message that was sanctioned by the District and we are further assessing its origin,” Gonzalez-Diego said in a emailed statement to the Miami Herald.