By: centraljersey.com
When parents place their children on the school bus, they shouldn’t have to worry that the bus driver will lose track of them.
But that’s what happened last week in South Brunswick, where a bus driver with a private contracting firm repeatedly insisted that twin first-graders reported missing were not on her bus, though they had been asleep in the last seat of the bus the entire time.
According to South Brunswick police, the children’s mother called police after her sons, who are speech delayed, did not arrive home from school. The driver insisted that the children were not on the bus, failed to respond to radio calls for 30 minutes and ignored initial requests to recheck the bus. The children were found on the bus at a bus stop in a nearby town about two hours after they were supposed to have been home.
The bus driver has been suspended, pending an investigation, and is expected to be dismissed from her job.
On the same day, a pair of 8-year-old twins in Gloucester County were left at the wrong bus stop, nearly two miles from where the bus driver was supposed to drop them, according to The Gloucester County Times.
This kind of thing should never happen. State law requires bus drivers to inspect their buses at the end of their routes to make sure all children are off the bus; if a child is left on the bus, the bus driver will be suspended for six months. A second offense would cost the bus driver his or her bus driver’s license.
As the South Brunswick and Gloucester County incidents show, however, waiting until the end of a route is not enough. School bus drivers have a responsibility to ensure that students are delivered to their proper bus stops within a reasonable amount of time and they should be required to account for each student who gets on or off their buses.
We understand that mistakes happen and that most drivers are diligent and take their responsibilities seriously. But it is the state’s responsibility to identify the potential for mistakes and find ways to prevent them.
Schools take roll in the morning and track students throughout the school day, because they are responsible not only for educating students but for ensuring their safety. This responsibility must extend to school buses. The Legislature and state Department of Education should investigate rule changes that would require bus drivers to account for students when they get on the bus and when they leave so that situations like those that occurred last week can be prevented.
Parents have a right to feel that bus drivers are taking as much care as the teachers and principals in their children’s schools.

