Driver investigated after students put off bus

By Emily Richmond

Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2006 | 7:31 a.m.

A Clark County School District bus driver is under investigation for allegedly abandoning more than a dozen Canarelli Middle School students at the campus, leaving them to find their way home.

Students at Canarelli say they were left behind at the school, on South Torrey Pines Drive at Robindale Road, after an argument with their bus driver. Most of those students were supposed to be taken to a district bus stop about six miles from the campus.

Both sides - the School District and the students - agree that the incident began Friday over graffiti found inside the bus. Students say that after they boarded, the driver demanded to know who was responsible. When they wouldn't give him a name, he ordered eight boys off the bus, the students said. Several girls who were related to some of the boys got off as well, students said.

A driver can issue citations to students but cannot refuse to transport them, said Ron Despenza, transportation manager for the district. But the driver provided a different account of what occurred, Despenza said.

The driver, who has worked for the district for only a few weeks, discovered the graffiti Thursday and reported it to his supervisor, Despenza said. The driver then asked permission to rearrange seating assignments so that he could keep a closer eye on the boys he believed were responsible, Despenza said.

The driver's supervisor replied that reassigning seats was allowed, but advised him to be sure to make the changes before setting off on his route, Despenza said.

On Friday, the driver told the students that he was changing their seating assignments and directed some of them to disembark while he made the switch, Despenza said. Instead of waiting to reboard, the students walked away.

As a courtesy, the bus driver could have informed school personnel that some of the students had not reboarded the bus, Despenza said. However the driver could not leave the bus to do so. "Basically the driver's hands are tied," he said.

The issue of graffiti is important to drivers because they are held responsible.

"When there's damage the drivers have to answer to us," Despenza said. "When we identify the kids responsible, we bill the parents." In this case, the bus was new.

Citing personnel confidentiality, Despenza declined to release the name of the driver.

The department is investigating the incident, including conducting interviews and checking whether the school's security cameras captured any images, Despenza said.

The district has procedures for dealing with unruly students once a bus is en route, including radioing for assistance from the transportation department or School Police, Despenza said.

Robyn DeReaux, whose son Divon is a seventh grader at Canarelli, said there's "no way" her son would walk home from school Friday by choice.

"My son does not want to walk to take the trash out," DeReaux said.

After getting her son's phone call, DeReaux said, she set out in her car, eventually collecting a half-dozen students, including her son.

To get home Friday, students said, they crossed the busy intersections at Jones and Decatur boulevards and took shortcuts through empty lots and construction sites.

Rather than put her son back on the bus Monday, DeReaux made arrangements for him to be picked up at school.

"The bus is supposed to be the safest way," DeReaux said. "Now I'm not so sure."

LaToya Grasser said her husband received a frantic phone call from their daughter Michelle, a sixth grader at Canarelli, on Friday.

"She said she was borrowing somebody's cell phone, and the driver had put them all off the bus," Grasser said Monday. "I said, 'What do you mean, off the bus?' No one told the parents, we had to drive around and find our kids."

Tabitha Pettit, an eighth grader at Canarelli, said when her brother Mark was ordered off the bus she followed, so that he wouldn't be left to walk home alone.

Mark, who is in the sixth grade, had brain surgery at the end of September to remove a tumor, his mother, Judy Pettit, said.

"If there was a problem on the bus and the driver needed assistance, he should have called the dean's office and alternate arrangements should have been made," Pettit said. "The children shouldn't have been left to their own devices. It was extremely negligent, and I'm very upset about how this was handled.

"I am asking the people in charge of my children to help me understand how this could happen and what are they going to do to make sure it doesn't happen again," Pettit said.

Canarelli Principal Kristy Keller did not return calls for comment.

Emily Richmond can be reached at 259-8829 or at [email protected].