THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 3, 1994 TAG: 9412030238
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: YORKTOWN LENGTH: Short : 45 lines
School officials in York County are looking into a dispute between a school bus driver and several parents who said the driver threatened to put their children off the bus in the middle of a wooded area.
Superintendent Steven R. Staples said a shouting match occurred between the driver and the parents on Wednesday morning while the bus was making its rounds. The driver, a substitute whose name was not released, has been suspended while the matter is investigated.
``Right now, I don't know what the truth is,'' Staples said after the driver and parents were interviewed. He said a committee conducting a review of the matter would send a recommendation Monday to his office.
The parents also have accused the driver of going too fast through their neighborhood.
Sue Bushong, whose 8-year-old daughter attends Magruder Elementary School, said her daughter told her that the driver told the children ``that she would take them out to these woods and she would leave them there, and they would never see their moms and dads again.''
Bushong said the threat, which supposedly occurred Tuesday, frightened the children. She and two other parents confronted the driver the next morning, she said, and the driver became ``loud and obnoxious.''
``My daughter was in one of the front seats, and she moved back, put her head to the window and she was sitting there, just sobbing,'' Bushong said. ``I said, `Well, that's enough for me,' and I got her off the bus.''
Other parents also removed their children from the bus and took them to school, she said.
Staples said the driver denied threatening to unload the children in the woods. She said she talked about taking a shortcut through a wooded area, he said.
But the superintendent said the driver's account ``doesn't sound plausible. Given the state of the kids, I imagine some action will be taken. The kids were scared. You have to be careful with elementary kids.'' by CNB