School Bus Driver Kicks Kids Off

Eddie Farah
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Posted by Eddie FarahFebruary 21, 2009 11:07 PM

This Jacksonville school bus driver had simply had enough. Several Ribault Middle School students were messing around on the bus, threatening to open the emergency door on the back of the bus.

A student, Kaylan Edem, admitted to Channel 4 that kids were disorderly and that students on the bus kept pulling the emergency handle. The bus driver threatened twice, then pulled over and told kids to exit the bus.

"The second when time they did it, she stopped right down there and said, 'Get off,'" Edem said. "I was pretty mad because I didn't feel like walking and she's supposed to take us to our correct stop, and it was inappropriate for her to just do that."

So Edem and a bunch of other kids were dropped at an elementary school two miles away. Students then had few options, walk back to their old school, call their parents, or try to walk home.

Edem’s mother was called by her daughter to pick her up. Lisa Jackson says,
“When we leave our children in the care of school officials, whether it’s a bus driver or a teacher, we expect for them to be safe, and at this day at this moment my student was not safe.”

First Student, the bus company, will have videotape onboard the bus to tell them what happened. The driver could have pulled over, called police, or taken the kids back to their school where parents would then have to deal with the problem.

Leaving them to find their own way home is unforgivable and against the rules of the Duval County School District. Fortunately no one was injured in this incident. The county just dodged a bullet. #

3 Comments

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Steve Lombardi
Posted by Steve Lombardi
February 22, 2009 10:13 AM

What's really inexcusble are parents making kids think they can get away with being brats. I have no idea with what the area is like where the kids were dropped off but have coached kids who simply refuse to cooperate or follow the rules and their parents refuse to support the coach. My father had a rule, if the school calls me you're in trouble. Plain and simple. The parents should support the bus driver and deal with the other problems, if in fact there is a problem.

Tom3
Posted by Tom3
February 23, 2009 11:15 AM

The district would not have this problem if they had their own school buses and drivers.

Hiring an outside company like First Student makes it more difficult for the school district to impose discipline on the buses, because they are not their buses.

First Student is a humongous company that runs 60,000 buses just in Canada and probably well over 100,000 buses in the US. They have recently taken over other school bus companies so they are a huge monstrosity of a bus company.

First Student has had a rash of bad bus incidents including leaving students on buses, kicking students off buses, and assorted accidents.

You want control of your students? Buy your own damn buses.

TA
Posted by TA
February 24, 2009 12:53 PM

Actually, 60,000 is the approximate number of school buses that First Student runs in the U.S. and Canada combined. It's more like 50,000 in the U.S. and 10,000 in Canada. This is from School Bus Fleet magazine.

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