Mike Robinette dropped off his son, Noah, around 11:45 p.m. Sunday. The buses weren’t there, but the teachers were waiting so he felt comfortable leaving his son and drove back home to Corona de Tucson. “Just as we’re going home, I get a call and he says we have to come back,” he said.

“He was upset, but he’s dealing with it,” Robinette said of his son. “He’s angry about it, of course.”

He had paid Senior Grad Trips $500 in December for Noah’s trip. “They definitely cashed my checks, took my money,” he said.

Now the Pima County Sheriff’s Department is working with Cienega High School to get to the bottom of it. If Senior Grad Trips can be reached and agrees to refund all of the money, it won’t be a crime, but if not, the incident will be treated as a fraud case, Mentone said.

Andrada Polytechnic High School’s graduates used the same company for their graduation trip, which took place earlier this month, she said. That school’s trip adviser discovered before the trip that Senior Grad Trips had not paid the bus company, but the matter was taken care of and Andrada students had a successful trip.