School Driver Snaps and Ditches Bus Full of Kids
The road where a Barrow Elementary School bus driver abandoned her bus full of children Tuesday afternoon. (Photo: KHOU)
Who hasn’t dreamt of making good on that old parenting threat, “Quit it or I’ll stop the car right now!” A school bus driver in West Columbia, Texas actually did that on Tuesday afternoon — she parked her bus, opened the door, and stormed off, leaving dozens of young school children stranded on a rural road.
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"She was driving and she slammed on the brakes really hard and she unbuckled her seat belt and she was like, ‘I’m done,’ and she just walked off the bus," a fifth grade student on the Barrow Elementary School bus in the Columbia-Brazoria school district tells KHOU 11 News of the driver, who had been handling the route for about two years and had multiple complaints on her record.
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“She felt like the kids were too rowdy and she couldn’t handle it,” Cyndy Pullen, director of human resources for the Columbia-Brazoria Independent School District, tells Yahoo Parenting of the driver, who was promptly placed on administrative leave and has since resigned.
A couple of the children on the bus, describing the incident. (Photo: KHOU)
A few of the 53 kids on the route – ranging in ages from preschool up to sixth-grade – couldn’t handle the situation either. Some were so upset that they reportedly became ill. “Madlyne has like, throw up going all down her side,” says the fifth grader. “Stuy was like shaking his butt off. I’m like nervous. I’m like, ‘Oh my God, they’re going to have a heart attack.’”
According to student accounts of the episode, just three stops into the route, the driver abandoned them on the side of the road, leaving the keys in the ignition and a new driver didn’t arrive for about 30 minutes.
Photo: KHOU
Investigation into the episode is ongoing, says Pullen, but she says review of the onboard video and testimony from parents thus far has revealed that the driver never in fact abandoned the bus, though she did exit the vehicle and didn’t return. The driver stood beside the bus and used her cell phone to call and request a replacement, which Pullen says was immediately dispatched.
“We had six parents come in and tell us what had occurred,” says Pullen. “They’re viewing the video today.” What the footage shows, she says, is that the driver took the keys with her when she left and stood outside the open door of the bus for 15 minutes until her replacement driver arrived. “They were back on the road 19 minutes later,” says Pullen. “It may have felt like 30 minutes to the kids but it wasn’t.” Student safety, she adds, “is our priority and it’s important to remember that the children weren’t in harm’s way.”
Photo: KHOU
The district is now offering counseling to any of the children upset by the events and Pullen says a few families have taken up on the offer already.
That’s a smart move, child psychologist and Yale Parenting Center director Alan Kazdin PhD, tells Yahoo Parenting. “But parents don’t have to stress about it or explain it too much,” he says. “There will probably be no lasting impact to expect from this,” because the kids were in a group and were “saved” relatively quickly. “It wasn’t a calamitous event, a hurricane or tsunami, that displaced the kids from their familiar surroundings and regular routine.” Even if it was a really stressful moment for a child, given a day to get over it, he says, “They’ll be fine.”
While your kids may not face this dramatic of a situation, they may find themselves unexpectedly alone. The key to bouncing back is simple, says Kazdin, who compares the level of stress in such instances to that of an adult when his or her boss yells at them on a bad day. “Just talk to kids about it responding to the exact level of their questioning,” he advises — whether it’s a true-or-false type of inquiry or more of a ‘Why?’, no more no less.
To the parents of the ditched Texas students, he suggests: “Just tell the kids, ‘The driver made a bad decision. There’s a new driver now,’ Then let it go.”
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