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Alabama |
Dec 2002, MOBILE - A 4-year-old deaf student was left alone on a school bus for 2-hours. Also working on the bus was a volunteer substitute bus aide. Because substitutes are not employees of the school system, the only disciplinary action that could be taken was to remove her name from the pool of potential substitutes, a school official said. |
1 driver
no info |
1 aide dismissed |
To School
(�Mobile Register) |
|
Arizona; |
SEPT 2002, EL MIRAGE - A 5-year-old boy was placed on the wrong school bus and told to get off in a completely unfamiliar neighborhood. After walking for a few minutes, he approached a woman that had pulled into her driveway. When he told her he was lost, she called the number listed on his name tag and told his grandparents where he was. |
no info |
From School
(�Arizona Republic) |
|
Arkansas |
SEPT 2002, GREENBRIER - A 5-year-old girl was supposed to be on the bus going from Greenbrier Westside Elementary School to her day care, but was dropped alone at her mother-in-law's residence who lives on a property that has ponds and electrical fences. The mother-in-law is not always at home or in the health to take care of my children, which is why I pay for daycare, the parent said. |
no info |
From School
Has happened more than once.
(�Log Cabin) |
|
Arkansas |
DEC 2002, LITTLE ROCK - A 2-year-old boy who attends a Preschool program at Van Buren County Special School, was left on a school bus for nearly seven hours. An extra supervisor who was supposed to be on the bus at the time, had called in sick that Monday. |
no info |
To School
*1 Aide out sick and not on the bus that day.
(�KARK NEWS 4) |
|
California |
MAY 2002, Modesto - A 7-year-old girl got on the wrong bus, and at the end of the bus run departed and walked a mile and a half home. A little girl who got off at the same stop pointed the child in the right direction and warned her not to talk to any strangers. The father said his daughter got on the wrong bus because another little girl threatened her. School officials said drivers are not supposed to let unknown students onto their buses and can let students off only at their assigned stops. |
no info |
From School
The shy first-grader probably didn't mention the mistake to the bus driver, said her father, and the driver didn't stop her as she disembarked.
(�Modesto Bee) |
|
California |
JUN 2002, OCEANSIDE - A 5-year-old girl, a summer school student at Mission Elementary School, riding an Oceanside Unified School District bus was dropped off alone and crying at the wrong bus stop, nearly two miles from her grandmother's home. She was found between 10 and 20 minutes later by a woman who called the police. The kindergarten student did not know her address, an officer drove with her for more than an hour around the neighborhood until the little girl pointed out her grandmother's home. Transportation officials said that the girl was incorrectly dropped at the wrong stop and left there, by a substitute who was not familiar with the girl and her route, and even though she was crying and no adult was there to meet her.
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*not disciplined |
From School
Although the driver used poor judgment he did not violate any policy and will not be punished. Since the incident, the district requirs students who ride the bus to wear color-coded stickers that indicate their correct bus and stop.
(�North County Times) |
|
Connecticut |
MAY 2002, MILFORD - A 3-year-old boy, a preschooler at Pumpkin Delight School, fell asleep on a Winkle bus and remained onboard for four hours after the driver went home because she felt ill. Another Winkle Bus Co. driver arrived to retrieve the bus and allegedly found the child in it. Police charged the driver (50) with risk of injury to a minor - but charges were later "nolled" through the court, acknowledging lack of criminal intent by the driver. Winkle Bus Co agreed to pay the full cost of parts and labor to install on its 60 buses safety alarms designed to prevent children from being left onboard.
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no info |
To School
State law requires school bus companies to set policies to prevent children from being left behind on buses or exiting at the wrong locations, according to Ernie Bertothy, spokesman for the state Department of Motor Vehicles.
(�Connecticut Post) |
|
Connecticut |
JUN 2002, MILFORD - A 4-year-old autistic boy reportedly squirmed out of his seat belt, freed himself from a safety lock meant to restrain high-risk children and toddled off the bus while the driver was busy helping another child get on the bus with a wheelchair. After 10 minutes, the driver noticed the boy was not on board and returned for him, a police spokesman said. School administrators began probing why the restraining device had failed, and whether to alter bus routes so children with wheelchairs are picked up first, to avoid creating driver distractions.
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no info |
To School
The school district followed the city's lead and is now putting aides on all buses for children with disabilities.
(�Connecticut Post) |
|
Florida |
AUG 2002, DAVENPORT - At the end of the bus ride on the first day of school, a Loughman Oaks Elementary first-grade girl was walking alone in a neighborhood nine miles from her home. "I telled him I don't live here, and he still told me to walk all the way home," she said. The driver figured she lived in a nearby subdivision where the other riders on that route lived. A stranger stopped to help as she stood crying along the highway. Jenna knew her home telephone number and called her mother. She was returned home safely about an hour later than her usual time. Students who ride the bus to school are labeled with a sticky tag identifying their bus critter. But the parent drove her daughter to school that day. The parent had called the office to make sure they knew what bus her daughter was to ride, but apparently that message never reached her teacher. |
no info |
From School
The school principal said the office was hectic with students registering for school, but he also planned to talk with the school's secretaries to determine where the communication lapsed.
(�Tampa Bay Tribune) |
|
Florida |
AUG 2002, NORTH PORT - A Toledo Blade Elementary School kindergartner wound up nine miles from her home after a teacher placed her on the wrong bus, despite the child's protests and her parents' written instructions. The parents' made sure their child knew the drill: home phone memorized, no rides from strangers, practice walks through the school hallways to and from the bus before school began. The girl also had explicit instructions in her backpack reminding teachers she was enrolled in an after-school program, from which her parents expected to pick her up. In the shuffle of dismissal a teacher placed Brittni on a bus despite the girl's insistence she did not belong there. The child rode the bus to its last stop, where another girl's mother took the crying child and kept her safe. |
no info |
From School
School officials were at a loss to account for the mishap. The principal called the incident "an honest mistake."
(�South Florida Sun-Sentinel) |
|
Hawaii |
FEB 2002, KAHALUU - A 5-year-old Kahaluu Elementary School girl disappeared on her way home on the bus. The child departed the bus at another stop because she wanted to visit with a friend. The parent was upset and demanded to know why the substitute bus driver failed to notice the child leave the bus. The bus driver had said to the parent at the child's bus stop that he saw the child board the bus at school but was not aware she got off before her stop. |
*not disciplined |
From School
A transportation services official said, "They (bus drivers) don't have authority to prevent a child from getting off [the bus]."
(�Honolulu Star-Bulletin) |
|
Louisiana |
MAY 2002, EAST BATON ROUGE - A sleeping Riveroaks Elementary student awoke on his school bus about four hours after school had started. The bus driver, about 3-years employed, had neglected to check her bus after her route and leaving. He was still on the bus parked at the apartment complex where the bus driver lived. He got off the bus and found a home-health worker at the complex who called the boy's mother. The spokeswoman said the incident was not the first time this year that a bus driver left a sleeping student on board before school. She said she doesn't know what discipline those drivers received.
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- |
1 driver |
To School
The driver was not tenured and could be fired immediately, a system spokeswoman said
(�Advocate)
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|
Massachusetts |
JUL 2002, BOSTON - A sleepy Head Start 4-year-old preschooler lay in the back of an unmarked contract minivan-turned-school bus, left behind on one of the hottest days of the year by a driver who didn't realize he was there. The owner of the private bus service, a former school bus driver, called the incident a terrible but isolated mistake. His rate was $35 a week, but this family was struggling, so he did it for them at $25. He said he could now lose his business - one he set up to try to meet parents' needs for affordable child-care transportation. The boy seemed unharmed, but his parents say he was put in harm's way, despite their every effort to keep him safe. The small contractor said he does criminal background checks on all his drivers. For 20 years he's known the driver who forgot the post check - "never had a problem with him," he said.
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- |
To School
The parent retained an attorney who released a statement calling a lawsuit "inevitable" and inviting a negotiated settlement.
(�Advocate)
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Massachusetts |
SEPT 2002, HOLYOKE - 2 first grade girls (ages 6 & 7) mistakenly boarded the wrong bus when school was dismissed. When the girls realized they were on the wrong bus, they asked the driver to get off the bus. Instead of following school district policy and keeping the girls on the bus and bringing them to the school district's parent registration center, the driver dropped the girls off. They were on the opposite side of the city from where they should have been. Fortunetly, a woman who had just met her own children at the bus stop realized the girls were lost. She drove them to their homes.
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- |
1 driver |
From School
(�School Bus Fleet)
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New York |
DEC 2002, BROOKLYN - A 4-year-old Brooklyn boy fell asleep on a "dollar van" bus and he missed getting off the bus at school. The child was still in the van and spent the next nine hours in the back seat riding the bus apparently unoticed by the driver. Police said that the boy was not discovered until the driver drove the van back to the Alpha School Bus headquarters in Long Island. The family had made sure to strap him into the van's first row of seats, but didn't know that the company would later switch the students to another van where the child was put in a back seat.
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no info |
To School
Police charged the driver with child endangerment.
(�New York Post)
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|
Pennsylvania |
NOV 2002, SOUTH PARK - A 4-year-old morning kindergarten student at South Park Elementary, spent about an hour on a school bus without his parents knowing his whereabouts. The youngster fell asleep on the bus and the driver did not notice the child was still on the bus and forgot to stop at the KinderCare Learning Center where rhe child is normally dropped off after his morning kindergarten class. The bus driver was alerted to the child's presence on the bus by the last student getting off the bus at another school. The driver was scheduled to immediately begin his route to pick up students for afternoon kindergarten, radioed his bus garage to report he had missed a stop on his morning run but that he planned to continue on with his afternoon run. The driver didn't say he still had a child on the bus. At some point after the parent and administrators from the elementary school notified the bus company garage in Peters that a student was missing. The bus company radioed the driver who then said he still had the child on the bus with him and that he would return him when he got back to the school with the afternoon kindergartners. When the driver arrived at the school, he simply told the teacher who met the bus that day that the child had fallen asleep. The teacher took that to mean that he was an afternoon student who had fallen asleep on his way to school. She told the child to go to his classroom, which was dark and empty because it is not used in the afternoon. In the meantime, school office workers became concerned when child didn't arrive at the office as expected, and went to look for him. He was found near his classroom and brought to the office. The KinderCare Learning Center sent a van to pick him up and take him to the center a short distance from the school.
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no info |
To School
Bus company officials agreed to remove the driver from routes in South Park at the district's request, and that changes made by Laidlaw and the district would prevent a similar incident from happening in the future, the school Superintendent said.
(�Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
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Pennsylvania |
NOV 2002, WASHING TWP. - A 5-year-old girl from Marion Elementary school was mistakenly left on the bus after her classmates were dropped off at school. The driver then dtove to a Kmart store where she parked the bus and went inside. "Within five minutes, the teachers knew that they were missing a student," and called the bus company, the Police Chief said. The bus service was unable to contact rhe driver. There are two versions of how the child was found: (1) The girl wandered into Kmart, according to one report. (2) A man found her in the parking lot, walked her in and took her to the service desk, the bus driver was located in Kmart and she took the child back to school.
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no info |
To School
Police continued to investigate the incident and the school district held the option of filing charges.
(�Valley Independent)
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|
Texas |
JUN 2002, AMARILLO - A 6-year-old boy is transported by bus from Carver Early Childhood Academy to San Jacinto Christian Academy, then to the Lil' Dreamers Day Care. He is usually dropped off at San Jacinto by one bus, goes inside the school and is then picked up by the day care. But the unlocked doors were shut because classes were out for the summer. The boy may have gotten the incorrect impression that no one was inside. The child began an attempt to walk to the day care about five miles away. He walked about a mile, crossing an avenue and then a street, before arriving at a cleaners where employees called the day care to come pick him up. The boy wasn't hurt, but his father filed a police report. The director of the day care said she is now arriving at the school about a half-hour earlier to make sure such an incident can't happen again. The bus company said if there is no one to receive a child, drivers notify dispatch and take the child with them on the rest of their route.
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The bus company said the driver resigned for an unrelated reason. |
To School
State law requires day-care centers use a check list to confirm when a student is picked up at what location, the director of the day care said.
(�Amarillo Globe-News)
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|
Texas |
SEPT 2002, CROSBY - a 4-year-old girl who fell asleep in the back of the bus was left behind by a 19-year veteran bus driver. She told district officials she thought she had delivered all her riders that morning and she then parked her bus at the bus barn about noon. The driver said she scanned the front portion of the bus, but she did not notice the girl asleep in the back before she left. After the girl awoke, she slid through the driver's window, school officials said. She found her way to the administrative offices and knocked on the door. The girl was alone in the bus for about 50 minutes, district officials said.
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1 driver
suspended 5 days |
- |
To School
District policy will now require a second worker to check parked buses after midday routes, a common practice after morning and afternoon routes.
(�Houston Chronicle)
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|
Utah |
AUG 2002, SANDY - A 5-year-old kindergartner walked home after a driver removed some students from his crowded bus and left them near a church in Sandy to wait for another bus. 15 minutes after she was put on the school bus she was pounding on the door, the parent said. As soon she understood the situation she got in her car and rushed over to the church to see if her other daughter was on the bus or waiting at the bus stop. The director of transportation for the Jordan School District said the driver erred. When the driver discovered he did not have room for all the kids, he called for a second bus. "It's a safety issue and he erred by not waiting for the other bus," the director said, who refused to give the bus driver's name or say whether he would be disciplined.
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no info |
To School
(�Salt Lake Tribune)
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Washington |
AUG 2002, KENNEWICK - A school bus driver called out a girl's name to depart at her stop, but a 5-year-old blond preschooler stood up instead and got off the bus. She was the only one to get off at that stop some four miles away from her home. Three girls found Mystee crying and took her home to their mother, who read the tag with her address and phone numbers clipped to the back belt loop of her jeans. The child's mother was furious. Her child was wearing a name tag, and she thought parents or guardians had to meet young children before buses would let them off. "I think they need to make some kind of rule," thenparent said. "Children are too young to know where they're supposed to get off or argue a point with a grownup." The child rode the bus home on her second day of school escorted by her older brother without any problems.
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- |
To School
Kennewick, Pasco and Richland school districts don't have policies requiring parents to meet young children at bus stops. That's only required for special-needs students.
(�Tri-City Herald)
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|
Washington |
SEPT 2002, PUYALLUP - A Puyallup schools bus driver apparently did not notice 4-year-old child, dressed in a bright pink sweatshirt, sleeping in the bus when she parked the vehicle after completing her morning route. The child was one of only four children on the bus that left the school. A School district spokesman said the child was not harmed and did not suffer any injury. In a complaint the parent said she received no answer when she called the district's transportation department and her daughter's school when her daughter was late coming home. She reached a school secretary an hour after her daughter was due home on the bus, according to the complaint.
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- |
To School
The parent eventually filled a Pierce County Superior Court personal injury claim against the Puyallup School District.
(�Tri-City Herald)
(News Tribune)
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|
Washington |
SEPT 2002, Everett - As his mother waited in front of an spartment complex her son, a 5-year-old kindergaerner, was getting off the wrong bus about 2 1/2 miles away. Apparently the bus driver on one bus misread the child's laminated identification badge and sent the child to the wrong bus for that day. The parent estimates her son wandered about half a mile after he got off the bus. He crossed a busy road, recognized his grandmother's apartment complex and knocked on her door. Roughly 50 children got off the bus where the child also departed. The bus driver told district officials she asked parents assembled at the bus stop if the child had an adult waiting to pick him up. She said she received a signal indicating that he did. In hindsight, the parent may have thought the bus driver was referring to a different student. This was the child's first day catching the bus.
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- |
From School
"The drivers have been talked to and reminded of the procedures and to pay close attention to the name tags," the district spokesman said. "The name tags are the safety net."
(�Daily Herald)
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