Results tagged “schoolbus”

CityRoom has a nice story about how some city school buses, empty during the day with kids in school, are being used to ferry senior citizens to supermarkets: "The elderly often have a difficult time finding fresh produce and healthful foods because of their limited mobility." The program also doesn't cost anything, since the school buses and drivers are there anyway; the city's Department of Aging said, "The fuel costs are in their contract, so there is no increase or decrease whether we used the buses or not."

Yesterday afternoon, a school bus carrying 26 children and a SUV collided into each other—and then into a home's front fence—on Kingdom Avenue at Billou Street in Staten Island's Huguenot section. The Staten Island Advance reports that the Our Lady Star of the Sea School bus had been traveling on Kingdom, while witnesses say the SUV "rolled through a stop sign on Billiou Street, into the path" of the bus. "The front of the bus on the driver's side smashed into the Cadillac's passenger side. The driver's side of the SUV was wedged against a tree toppled in the crash." An 11-year-old student and the SUV's two passengers were treated for minor injuries. The homeowner who found the two vehicles in her front yard told the Post the surrounding streets are a mess, "Everybody is in such a hurry, people run through these [stop] signs all the time. Somebody’s going to get killed," while another neighbor opined, "No one can see the stop signs — or they don’t care. The Escalade blew the stop sign but I’m sure the bus was supposed to be on his block either."

A school bus ride for the nine young summer campers at the Magic Carpet Day Camp turned tragic when their driver dropped dead of a heart attack and collapsed out of the bus while driving yesterday in Queens. Ramon Fernandez, 47, died after losing consciousness while stopped at a red light behind the wheel of a camp school bus in Elmhurst. Fernandez then collapsed out of the door he was keeping open while stopped in order to get additional ventilation into the un-air conditioned bus. When Fernandez fell out, 16-year-old camp counselor Rachel Guzy leaped forward and reached for the emergency brake as the bus slowly rolled into another vehicle in the intersection. The bus matron had minor injuries, but all of the Bayside campers were unharmed. An 11-year-old on board told the Post, "He was driving with the door open because it was really hot, and he felt really hot. It's not normal...Me and my friend, we were in the front near the counselor. She was crying, very nervous after it happened....[Rachel] saved our lives because she pulled the brake."

Last year, a number of Department of Education officials were charged with taking nearly $1 million in bribes from private bus companies. Now the NY Times reports that DOE is examining whether those companies, which transport a fifth of students, "are fit to do business with the city." The companies haven't been charged yet—they are being investigated—but the Times points out, "The city generally avoids doing business with companies that have had a documented role in defrauding it." However, the the bus system is sort of fragile—in early 2007, there are chaos when routes changed, and it seems like school bus companies operate in a world of their own: "The presidents of four of the bus companies said to have paid bribes were also listed as the presidents of seven other bus companies with city contracts, though those companies were not named in the court papers." (Apparently companies share resources.)

Who said preteens don't know how to party? Oh that's right—nobody. Well, a few Connecticut middle schoolers really stepped up to the plate and turned their school bus into a booze cruise on wheels, selling mixed drinks to the other students on board for two dollars each. The Norwalk tween trio used juice, iced tea and Gatorade as mixers, but there was no confirmation of our suspicion that Miley Cyrus thermoses were turned into shakers. School officials are playing party patrol and disciplining the students without police intervention after being tipped off by parents. They claim that none of the students on board the party bus became intoxicated. Which makes us wonder: have these kids already built up a preteen tolerance or were these drinks watered down, thus officially making the junior bartenders the greatest young entrepreneurs since the Olsen twins?

A 14-year-old girl walking to school in Queens was killed when a school bus hit her at 57th Avenue and 92nd Street in Elmhurst around 8:10 a.m. The girl was headed to Francis Lewis High School, where she is a freshman. CityRoom reports that cops think the incident "appeared to be accidental" (the bus driver, who stayed at the scene had "no alcohol" on his breath) and adds, "It was immediately unknown, for instance, in what direction the bus was traveling and along which of the streets and it was unknown what direction the teenage girl was walking... Also unknown was whether the vehicle was traveling with or against the traffic light." The Department of Education says the school bus was not affiliated with the DOE.

The bus driver who was arrested after forgetting about a 3-year-old student left on the bus has received multiple tickets for public drinking, according to the Daily News. Terry Rocker, as well as bus matron Charlene Powell, left autistic Jose Gabriel Lopez (pictured) on a bus for six hours; the child was discovered when his mother went to PS 168 to pick him up--only to be told her son never arrived! The News also reports that Rocker and Powell found the boy on the short bus at "about 1 p.m. and held him for a couple of hours, hoping to bring him back to the school and mix him in with other students without being discovered," but he was found by a teacher after 2 p.m.! Jose's parents decided not to put him on a school bus yesterday.

Yesterday afternoon, a mother picking up her son from P.S. 168 in the Bronx was told her son never arrived, leading to the discovery that 3-year-old Jose Gabriel Lopez had been abandoned on his school bus since the morning. Police found the autistic boy, "dehydrated, sweaty and hungry," in a bus parked nearby, according to the Daily News.

The school bus driver who apparently dropped off a 5-year-old child at the end of her route--even though he was on the bus by accident and actually lives across from the school--has been suspended without pay as the incident is investigated. The Daily News reports that driver Kimba Ewers claims little Jaeden Vasquez was dropped off with other children and that adults were waiting for them (adults must be present to pick them up at the stop). Ewers's bus company also says the school is at fault, since the child says a school aide told him to get on the bus. The DOE went to supervise dismissal and school bus boarding yesterday--"The kids who belong on the buses are supposed to be checked off as they board."

from P.S. 111, someone put him on a school bus and the driver kicked him off at the last stop. The Daily News reports that the boy attends an after-school program next door in the Bronx--kids line up for the program or buses--but someone put him on a bus. Though the Department of Education says young children should not be let "off the bus unless an adult is waiting," Jaeden was booted off. He ended up asking a (thankfully) nice stranger how to get home, and she ended up taking him back to P.S. 111 in a cab. His mother said, "The school said they were sorry, but sorry wouldn't have replaced my son if he had gotten killed." DOE is investigating and only told the News, "The driver may have done something wrong... This should never have happened."

A 10-year-old special needs student gets taken over 100 blocks out of the way when his bus drives him home, which makes his afternoon commute home just about two hours. Evan Bongirne's mother said, "No kid should get on a bus at 7 a.m. and come home at 5 p.m." This year, Evan "was moved from a short bus with a half-dozen kids to a long bus with as many as 14 kids who attend four different schools." His school is at West 82nd Street, and the bus travels to 108th Street before heading to his East 11th Street neighborhood. The Department of Education tells the Post that while special-needs students' bus routes did decrease, it's actually because they have better routes. Flashback to January 2007, when the DOE changed bus routes and 7-year-olds were told to take three different city buses and siblings going to the same school had pickup locations a mile away.

Authorities have arrested a 62-year-old bus driver after a bus matron allegedly saw him fondling a mentally challenged student. The matron had left the bus to take another student into P.S. 226 in Bensonhurst, and when she returned, she apparently saw Efrim Bondarev's hand down the 14-year-old girl's shirt. Bondarev works for a private bus company contracted by the Department of Education.

While no one wants corruption in the public school system, hearing that four Department of Education officials were arrested for taking almost $1 million in bribes from private school bus companies.