A Brampton elementary school says it has requested that a school bus driver be placed on another route after she refused to drop off children until they quieted down, resulting in upwards of an hour delay in their return home.
In a letter to parents that was first obtained by NewsTalk 1010, the principal of Mount Royal Public School says that the driver pulled over the bus for about 20 minutes on Feb. 15 due to “excessive noise” on board. The letter says that the driver then resumed operation of the vehicle but drove back to the school rather than dropping any students off. At that point, the vice-principal spoke to students and advised the driver that she needed to get them “home immediately,” the letter states. The bus driver then left the school but stopped the bus one more time for about 20 minutes before completing her route.
There were about 40 children on board the bus during the incident.
“The school has now contacted the consortium STOPR to voice our concerns about this issue and we have asked that the bus driver be removed from the route,” the letter states. “This however remains the decision of the bus company.”
STOPR, which is the third-party organization that manages student transportation for the Peel District School Board, has a policy that drivers must “deliver students to their scheduled destination, even if they display unruly behaviour."
The bus company that is actually contracted out to transport students, however, released a statement of their own on Wednesday, suggesting that the noise on the bus was loud enough to create safety concerns.
“The level of misbehavior on the bus was severe enough that our driver had to stop the bus and then return to the school, in compliance with our safety protocols,” Parkview Transit said.
Though Mount Royal Public School has asked the bus company to place the driver on another route, a spokesperson for the Peel District School Board told CP24 on Wednesday that the driver will be back behind the wheel under the supervision of a senior manager from the bus company.
The spokesperson said the incident continues to be the subject of a joint investigation between the board, STOPR and Parkview Transit.
Meanwhile, some parents say they are concerned with what happened and want something done about it.
Daljit Beniwal, whose eight-year-old daughter and seven-year-old son both ride the bus, told CTV News on Wednesday that some children were crying upon disembarking from the vehicle.
Beniwal said that she then spoke to the driver but was only told that the delay was due to the fact that the kids were “shouting.”
She said that the driver was also “rude and angry” and didn’t apologize for the delay, which she said had left some parents in a state of panic.
