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By creating a smart bus system, MESH can help prevent school bus tragedies. Check out the full article below.
A driver who left a 5-year-old boy from Linden Hill Elementary on a freezing school bus for several hours has been fired, the Sutton Bus Co. confirmed Thursday.
Dave Sutton, the company’s senior vice president, would not comment any further on the incident. Sutton Bus Co. contracts with the Red Clay Consolidated School District and was the driver’s employer.
The little boy, Ibn, got on the bus at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday. At 3:10 p.m., his mom, Ivana, got a call from the school district informing her that Ibn never made it to class.
He had been stuck on a cold bus for several hours.
Broken policies, both on the school bus and at Liden Hill Elementary School, put Ibn in harm’s way, Red Clay said Tuesday.
“Physically, he’s OK, thank God,” district spokeswoman Pati Nash said, adding that district officials are horrified by the incident.
What the experts say
The American School Bus Council said it does not track how often kids are left alone on school buses. But schoolbusfleet.com, a trade publication, says it’s reported on several such incidents.
They are rare, the magazine says. Consequently, children are at risk, and the bus driver most likely ends up terminated.
In some instances, students have died, including a 3-year-old who was left on a day care bus in Texas after a field trip in July. It was only when the boy’s father came to pick him up at 6:30 p.m. that officials discovered the boy was missing.
The key to avoiding tragedy is to build in redundancies, schoolbusfleet.com says.
Bus drivers have to perform multiple checks. Equipping buses with a child reminder system that alarms the driver to intentionally walk to the back of the bus to check for students can assist in preventing these incidents.
But those measures are not foolproof, as the Red Clay incident shows.
According to the school district, these are all the things the bus driver did not do:
- Look in the bus after two students told her Ibn was asleep.
- Examine the bus when she finished dropping off kids at Linden Hill in Pike Creek.
- Double check the bus when she parked it at the Red Clay bus yard near New Castle, despite signs reminding her to do so.
The bus also had a child reminder system.
“Apparently, that did not work in this case either,” Nash said.
The bus driver did not notice Ibn was still on the bus until 2:50 a.m., roughly six hours after he got on, when he either coughed or made a small noise, camera footage from the vehicle shows.
What parents can do
Ibn’s mom did everything right.
She made sure he got on the bus Tuesday morning and trusted that he would make it safely to school.
His teacher took attendance late, however.
At Linden Hill Elementary attendance is at 10:15 a.m. At 11 a.m., information regarding absent students triggers a phone call to parents to let them know their child is absent.
In the case of Ibn, this never occurred.
After similar incidents, parents demand new policies ensuring kids safely arrive at school.
Here are a few different approaches that have been taken:
- At some districts, bus drivers are required to walk to the back of the bus and hang a sign or flag on the back window saying the bus is empty. This low-tech solution doesn’t depend on an electronic child remind system functioning properly.
- At some districts, two staff members have to check the bus for students before it’s allowed to leave the school.
- Some districts have drivers go outside the bus and open one of the emergency doors to get a good view of the floor and make sure no one is sleeping or hiding under one of the seats.
- One transportation manager in New Jersey came up with catchy slogans such as “Be on the ball, check for us all,” each month and put them on posters and flyers, according to schoolbusfleet.com.
Several school districts, Red Clay included, make it clear in their handbooks that leaving a child on a bus is a fireable offense.
“In our bus driver handbook, it’s grounds for immediate termination to leave a child on a bus,” Nash said.
The driver in this case was not directly employed by Red Clay, but the district immediately requested that they no longer drive for the district.
Sutton Bus Co. then terminated the employee.
Apps That Help Keep Track of Your Kids
If you’re nervous about your kids getting to school, there are apps that can help.
One is Life360’s Family Locator. It lets you save favorite locations so that friends and family get automatic alerts when you come and go. You can register your child’s cellphone (it doesn’t need to be a smartphone), and the app will find them on a map.
MORE: These devices help you connect to kids and tweens without a smartphone
It also has a panic button.
If your child is too young for a cellphone, there are several wearable GPS trackers on the market. Some are watches, and some are patches for their clothing. Others clip onto their backpacks.
Popular brands include:
- Angel Sense
- Relay
- Verizon GizmoWatch
- AmbyGear
- Weenect
- Buddy Tag
- Amber Alert GPS
- dokiWatch
- Jiobit
- MESH
Prices vary. Read reviews before purchasing the best one for your family.