When things work perfectly, no one has much to say about it. When things go wrong, this makes the news! This is probably why we are hearing so many stories about school bussing situations that didn’t go as expected. Sometimes, it takes a bit of negative publicity for a school to improve aspects of their bussing system that are failing.
Every school year, there are stories in the news about situations where the drivers of school busses that were intended to pick up and drop off students who have special needs have failed preform this task in a safe and timely manner. I make a note of these not to scare parents, or to sensationalize the situations. My hope is to embarrass the school district into making changes to their bussing program that will make things safer for the students who ride the busses.
In Houston, Texas, a bus driver from Aldine ISD dropped off a five year old girl at a busy intersection that was located 35 yards from her family’s front door. The child has Down Syndrome, and she is non-verbal. Her father specifically asked the driver to drop his daughter off at the door.
Instead, the driver drove away, with his daughter still on the bus. It took more than 2 and a half hours for this father to recover his daughter. Now, he is asking for the driver to be fired, or, at least, replaced.
In Simi Valley, California, a school bus driver for Crestview Elementary School left a child alone on a parked bus for more than four hours. The driver claims he thought the bus was empty. Instead, it had a Special Education elementary school student on it.
There were high temperatures that day, but, it has been reported that the child was unharmed. The driver has been put on paid leave, pending the outcome of a Simi Valley Unified School District investigation.
In Compton, California, parents have yet to receive answers about how a bus driver who was driving a bus that had more than a dozen special needs students on it got lost for five hours. When their children were not dropped off at the right time, many parents got worried and called the Compton School Police. The police spoke with Bursch Elementary School, and a supervisor for the bus company was able to locate the bus and the driver.
One of the students who was on that bus has cerebral palsy, is non-verbal, and wears a diaper. He was supposed to arrive home at 2:30. Instead, his school bus driver dropped him off at 7:30 at night. There was no aide on the bus to help the children.
Image by Bill McChesney on Flickr