A Winnipeg mom is speaking out after her 9-year-old daughter spent more than two and a half hours in bitterly cold temperatures Tuesday morning after her school bus didn't show up.

Izabella Roberts wants to know why the St. James-Assiniboia School Division didn't call her to let her know the bus wasn't going make it and why no one notified her sooner her child, Tumia Roberts, hadn't made it to classes at Ecole Assiniboine School.

Superintendent Brett Lough said the school bus driver, who drives bus for a company hired by the school division, got delayed by a collision on Route 90.

"The bus driver for some reason unbeknownst to me chose to omit part of his route," Lough said.

Lough explained the driver didn't notify his dispatcher leaving the school in the dark about the situation.

"It's the responsibility of the school division to ensure that contracted services are provided,” he said.

In total, Lough said nine children were absent from school, because of the missed pickup.

"This (Tumia's case) is the only one we're aware of where someone was hurt,” he added.

Tumia said when the bus didn't show up she walked home at around 8:30 a.m., tipped over a garbage bin and climbed over a fence into her backyard thinking she could get back inside her house using the back door.

"I was feeling really sad that the bus didn't come," she said.

The door was locked. Tumia was trapped in the backyard.

"I just curled up into a ball and had my face in my school backpack," she explained.

Izabella said the locks on the front door had recently been changed and that's why Tumia couldn't get in the house from the front yard.

Izabella said 3 other kids waiting at the same stop went to a neighbour's place.

She said no one from the school called her until after 10:30 a.m. to notify her about her daughter's absence.

When she got home after the school eventually notified her, she called out her daughter's name and found her in the backyard "half frozen."

"She started telling me her body hurts," Izabella said. "If they didn't call me sooner and I didn't come until 12 it could've been a lot worse."

Tumia went to hospital where she was treated for exposure to the cold.

She's feeling better, but still has sore feet and soreness in her body.

Tumia's bus usually picks her up at a stop in the neighbourhood about five houses to the east of her place at 8:04 a.m.

Izabella said she usually leaves for work around 8:05 a.m. after Tumia walks to the bus stop.

"Like any other day I felt confident the bus was going to pick her up," Izabella explained.

She said she has no choice but to leave for work around the same time Tumia's bus arrives.

Roberts said she's taught her daughter how to use the new electronic lock and told her if she ever gets locked out again to go to the neighbour's place.

Lough said the school division is reviewing processes and protocols to make sure something like this doesn't happen again.

Tumia will still ride the bus, but the 9-year-old acknowledged she's a little nervous to do so because of what happened.