A Calcasieu Parish school bus driver who earlier this month left a 3-year-old child on a bus alone for more than six hours
has been terminated, a Calcasieu school official said Monday.
The driver, who has not been publicly identified, picked up Darren St. Romain and his twin brother around 7 a.m. on Jan. 16
to bring them to J.D. Clifton Elementary School’s Head Start.
Darren’s mother, Yessenia Williams,
said the boy was later found around 2 p.m., alone and still on the bus,
which the driver
parked at S.J. Welch Middle School after dropping off the other
children at school. Head Start Director Lisa Causey, who
declined to comment, called Williams after Darren had been found,
telling her she needed to come to the school. Williams said
she was told by Causey and a bus coordinator the toddler had
either fallen asleep on the bus or crawled under a seat when
the children were being dropped off in the morning.
“When she said my son was on a bus I
thought it was like an hour ... when she said all day I just burst out
crying,” Williams
said. “When a kid’s missing, most schools call and I feel like
they should have that system now that this incident happened.”
Darren, who has sickle-cell anemia, is
often in and out of school because of his illness. Williams speculated
that his teacher
did not report him absent because of this. She noted her son spent
the day on the bus in 40-degree temperatures with nothing
to eat or drink.
“The protocol we use was in place and this would not have happened if the protocol had been followed,” Superintendent Wayne
Savoy said. “What (policies) we had in place are as good as we could have had them.”
Assistant Superintendent Gary Anderson
said bus drivers are supposed to check the bus to make sure no one is
left behind after
students are dropped off. “This should never have happened and
the student should never have been left on the bus,” he said.
As a result of this incident, buses to
and from Head Start were suspended for a few days until the incident was
investigated
and a new driver was found. Anderson said Head Start school bus
drivers must have a special certification through the school
to transport students. He said the bus driver has been replaced
and buses are running again.
Williams said she plans to allow her children to continue riding the bus because of the new driver and because administrators
assured her drivers would be more careful about checking for students.