JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A Duval County substitute bus driver is being disciplined after letting children off the bus nearly a mile away from their regular stop, unsupervised, during Monday’s tornado warning.
Birnie Bus Services Vice President of Operations Eric Taylor said he knew nothing about the incident before Action News Jax called him.
Dominic and Josalynn Simon were among several children dropped off at the intersection of Normandy Boulevard and Fox Creek Drive in Jacksonville Heights.
That's 0.7 miles from their regular bus stop, where their mother, Christina Simon, was waiting for them when she got a tornado warning alert on her phone.
"I got really scared," Simon said. "We trust these people with our kids, with their safety, and they're not looking after it."
The kids said a tree fell onto the sidewalk they were running on, barely missing them.
“We started running and then I almost got hit by a tree. I was the closest one to it,” Dominic said.
Josalynn said the substitute bus driver made them get off at the wrong stop.
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“He told us that there was a tornado coming, so he wasn’t coming all the way back there,” Josalynn said.
Duval County Public Schools spokesperson Laureen Ricks, speaking on behalf of Birnie Bus Services, said the substitute bus driver did not force the children off and was relying on the children to know which stop was theirs.
She said after making the stop on Normandy, the driver turned the bus around and brought the rest of the kids back to Normandy Village Elementary to wait out the storm.
"The guest bus driver stopped at an established bus stop and several students left. Due to immediately changing weather conditions and as a safety precaution, the driver determined it was necessary to transport students back to Normandy Village Elementary," Ricks said.
But Chelsea Lambert, whose 6-year-old was also let out at the wrong stop, said she doesn’t want that substitute driving her son again.
“At the beginning of the year, I had to sign a slip for kindergarteners not to be let out without me or my assigned adults I have on the slip,” Lambert said. “They did it anyway.”
“There should be a folder in each bus that contains the parent letters for each kindergartner who rides that bus. Protocol is for substitute bus drivers to identify who their kindergartners are and review their letters either before the bus leaves the school campus or before students are released from (the) bus. The guest bus driver in question will be retrained on protocols and disciplined accordingly. Birnie Bus will also emphasize this topic at their monthly safety meeting,” Ricks said in a statement.
Lambert said her son showed up at her house with another kindergartener who rides on his bus but doesn’t live in the neighborhood.
“There was like another little kid behind him and I’m like, ‘Who are you? Where do you live? There’s a tornado coming. We need to get you safe now,’” Lambert said.