Wednesday, September 25, 2013

EXCLUSIVE: MCPS BLAMES 6 & 7 YEAR OLD STUDENTS for Bus Driver Putting them Off Bus 1/2 Mile From Home

As first reported here on the Parents' Coalition blog, 17 elementary school students were put off their MCPS school bus 1/2 mile from home on Friday, September 27, 2013. 
The majority of these students were 6 and 7 years old. 
The MCPS bus driver was a substitute. 

When the parents and guardians who were at the bus stop finally found their missing children, they called the MCPS Bus Depot for assistance.  The response they got was, "What do you want me to do about it?"

Below is the e-mail response that a parent finally received on Monday, September 23rd from the MCPS Transportation Manager for this bus route.

MCPS has reviewed the INTERIOR BUS CAMERA VIDEO TAPE and decided that the children were at FAULT in this incident. 
This means that the BUS DRIVER who put these children off at the wrong location is still employed by MCPS. 

Note:  Parents have not been allowed to view the INTERIOR BUS CAMERA VIDEO TAPE.

IF ONLY THE 6 & 7 year olds had done their job this never would have happened?

_____________________________
Mrs.  XXXX,
                I am sorry for the confusion created last Friday afternoon on route XXXX going home from N.C.C. and RHES.
I made a change to XXXX/YYYY effective last Friday at the two stops on West Bxx Dr. The driver on Friday had bad paperwork that did not show the two W. Bxx stops so he did not drive there with the kids. The Paperwork portion has all been fixed as of this morning 9/23/13.
Our office watched a video recording the bus had from Friday; the driver pulled up to the stop at Old Sxxx and Cxxx when kids just got off the bus. The patrols from the stops on West Bxx gathered the kids and took them without talking to the driver about missing a stop. I commend the patrols for identifying where they were and taking charge to get the kids home. If the group had asked the driver that they had missed their stop, the driver would have taken them to the correct location. Two kids stayed on the bus and the driver found them crying at the last stop. When they told him where their stop was he took them there.
I spoke to the supervisor on duty Friday and they did relay that I was out of the office till Monday. An absence of information creates a vacuum which allows people to add information detrimental to a smooth resolution when details can fix the problem right away.  On our end I am working on clarifying how communication is handled with parents when any incident like this ever happens again. I know when my child is missing I get very emotional, the combination of events was not smooth or clear and that puts all in a heighted state.
Sorry to put you and others in that position last Friday. I have spoken to both schools and the administration is clear with what happened and we are ready to continue on from here in a positive light.
Sincerely,
                William Stapleton
________________________
 

2 comments:

  1. If these culpable 6 and 7 year olds had only been on Leventhal's new holiday, this incident would have never happened. Just to show them who’s boss, the bus driver should have put the students off in the middle of a median strip on a busy thoroughfare. That would have taught them a lesson. (When is MCPS insanity going to stop? Are we really getting our $2.1B of value here?)

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  2. If the driver was given "bad paperwork," at least part of the blame goes to whoever created the "bad paperwork" ("bad" in what way, precisely?) and whoever gave it to a substitute driver.

    What about the patrols who walked the kids to their stops? I wonder, do their accounts corroborate what was written above?

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