McKinney ISD parents convened at a school board meeting Monday to raise safety concerns about a runaway bus driver incident involving a contractor this year.
A bus driver for students at McClure Elementary School drove off the scheduled route and onto U.S. 75 for several miles in February and ended up in Allen. McKinney Independent School District sent an email to parents the next day that noted the driver was new to the route and made a mistake. However, parents were not satisfied with the response from the district and demanded more answers at the school board meeting held on December 18.
“Are you going to sit on your hands until one of our kids disappears?” Mike Madden, a McKinney resident, asked as he demanded a full report on the incident, according to Texas Scorecard.
Russell Fish is the co-founder of The Open Records Project, a government watchdog group. He worked with parents to hold McKinney ISD accountable for the bus incident and delivered remarks at the school board meeting.
“The question is, can a school district outsource its responsibilities for student safety?” Fish asked the board.
The driver of the misdirected bus was hired by Durham School Services. Parents of students on the bus filed a lawsuit in March against McKinney ISD, Durham, and the bus driver. It alleged that the children — between the ages of 6 and 11 — were under physical and emotional duress during the incident, with some thinking they were being kidnapped.
The school district was later dropped from the lawsuit after it argued the responsibility lies on the bus contractor it deployed.
Fish said during the recent meeting that the district should have contacted Child Protective Services after the bus went missing. He cited Prosper ISD as an example of why more precautionary action is needed, as the district had a bus driver charged with sexually molesting two elementary school girls more than 100 times on his bus, as previously covered in The Dallas Express.
Across Texas, several educators, coaches, and other staff entrusted with being around children have faced allegations of improper conduct ranging from the promotion of child pornography to sexual contact with a student. Three employees of Dallas ISD — the second largest public school district in the state — were arrested on allegations of crimes committed against students.
