Child reportedly dropped off bus half-mile from home; officials react
Parents recently appealed to the Oak Ridge Board of Education for more action after a 6-year-old girl was reportedly let off a school bus one-half mile from her home.
Jimmye Chapman, the Glenwood Elementary School student's mother, gave a detailed account to The Oak Ridger of two October incidents involving a school bus driver, the second of which she also described to the Board of Education at its Nov. 22 meeting.
"That shouldn't happen to any children," Chapman told The Oak Ridger.
She said her children ride Bus No. 59 with Glenwood Elementary School in the morning and afternoon.
Immediately after fall break, she said, her kids got a new bus driver.
She said on Friday, Oct. 22, she stood on her front porch waiting for the bus, but the bus passed her house with her two children aboard.
Chapman said she ran the bus down and tried to signal the driver to stop. She said it came to a stop at a stop sign the end of the road.
"My kids hands were in the air also trying to alert the driver, but they have been advised not to talk on the bus so they were scared to speak up," she stated.
Chapman said the driver apologized and said, “I’m new."
"Which is understandable," the mother said.
However, she said, an Oct. 27 incident didn't work out as well.
She said her son was out sick, leaving only her daughter on the bus. Because she and her husband, Casey, were at work, Jimmye's aunt waited for the bus at their home. The driver again failed to stop at the right place, but the aunt couldn't chase the bus down like Chapman had.
Chapman, a nurse at Endocrinology Consultants Of East Tennessee, said she was taking care of a patient and couldn't come home immediately after her aunt called.
Chapman said her daughter Seeley had been dropped off at Christ Community Church, one-half mile away from their house.
"She told the driver that she missed her stop and the driver asked if she could walk home from there and my sweet, six-year-old child, who barely weighs 40 pounds, nodded her head and exited the bus.
"By the grace of God, a Good Samaritan saw my daughter crying while walking on Outer Drive and asked if she could help. My daughter told her what happened and her address, and the kind woman walked her home. By the time my daughter got home, she was crying so much she couldn’t speak," Chapman told The Oak Ridger.
The woman who found Chapman's daughter, Leah Hunter, was recognized at the School Board meeting for helping the child.
"It's just wonderful to live in a community where we have citizens like yourself," Bruce Lay, Oak Ridge Schools' executive director of school leadership, told Hunter.
Hunter said she was grateful she happened to be on the road at that time.
"They need to take it very seriously, because no six-year-old should be alone on a street like that," she said.
"The thoughts as a mother as to what could have happened to my child are endless," Chapman told The Oak Ridger in a message shortly after the October incident.
Casey and Jimmye Chapman told the School Board they would have preferred the matter have been part of the School Board's agenda that night, as an item for the board to address. Instead it came up during the time for comments because the Chapmans and other citizens spoke about it.
"This is our No. 1 priority," Jimmye Chapman said.
Other citizens, including Hunter, joined them at the meeting in addressing the School Board, saying they supported the mother and her concerns.
"I have seriously questioned our school system's concern for our children's safety," resident Brooklyn Carr told the School Board.
Chapman told The Oak Ridger she had previously addressed the Glenwood Parent Teacher Organization and Isaac Walton, the supervisor of transportation for First Student, the contractor that provides bus transportation for Oak Ridge Schools.
Officials respond
School Board Chairman Keys Fillauer said the Board had not ignored Chapman's concerns and had looked into them.
"It was not acceptable," he said of what happened. "We (School Board members) are continuing to have discussions to this day (about the issues)."
Lay talked about First Student's response, saying he had worked with Walton. He said the issues Chapman had brought up were addressed in training, but the driver was new and had "made a mistake."
He said the driver in question had switched to another route with older students and is driving with a monitor.
Monitors, he and Walton explained, are drivers who are still working on their commercial drivers licenses. They are in charge of following beginner drivers to make sure they are following rules.
First Student is looking to see if its training period is "too quick," he said.
Walton spoke to The Oak Ridger after the meeting and explained that being a monitor gives the drivers in training additional experience.
"In effect, they'll be riding the buses for at least 20 hours per week," he said.
"We have to just keep moving forward," he said. "Just continue to reevaluate to make sure we're doing things safely."
Ben Pounds is a staff reporter for The Oak Ridger. Call him at (865) 441-2317, email him at bpounds@oakridger.com and follow him on Twitter @Bpoundsjournal.
This article originally appeared on Oakridger: Child reportedly dropped off bus half-mile from home; officials react
