BATON ROUGE -- A Baton Rouge mother says that her 5th-grade son was attacked by a man while waiting for the school bus along Highland Rd. Thursday morning.

Alisha Ellis says her son and daughter wait for the bus around 7:20 a.m. in the parking lot near the Walmart on Highland.

"Today was the first day that I didn't go out there with them. I normally would be out there with them. Today I had to go to work early, so that's why they went by themselves," Ellis said.

The bus usually arrives between 7:30 and 7:45 a.m., which takes them to Audubon Baton Rouge, the charter school on Innovation Park Dr.

However, on Thursday Morning, Ellis says her daughter noticed something different.

"My daughter starts stepping back because she notices a guy approaching them, and my son looks up, and the guy hits him in his face with a shoe. He was like, " What's going on? I don't know you. I didn't do anything. The guy says, " Yes, you did," Ellis said.

Her daughter ran to get help from an adult, then the bus pulled up.

"They got on the bus. They told the bus driver what happened and asked Can we use your phone to call our mom and let her know what happened?" Ellis said.

The company in charge of the buses, DS Bus South, confirmed that the kids did ask the bus driver if they could use the phone. The company told WBRZ that after letting the kids use the phone, the bus driver alerted dispatchers, who then called the school to let them know what had happened.

When Ellis found out about the attack, she says she filed a police report with the Baton Rouge Police.

Ellis also took several pictures of the man her son said had attacked him.

"The officer who took my report called, and he said, ' Hey, can you send me the pictures that you've taken of this guy so we can get a good description of him or see if we can make out his face. I sent it over to them," Ellis said.

Ellis said her children are ok, but are scared.

"They don't want to go outside, they don't want to play, they don't want to ride their bikes. They don't want to catch the bus," Ellis said.

Ellis plans to take her kids to and from school from now on.