School Bus Driver Refuses To Release Screaming, Crying Kids To Their Waiting Parents - Oh, HELL No

Video was released this morning of an Arizona bus driver who opted to lock the doors of the bus he was driving, rather than let students disembark into their parents’ waiting arms. He claims the kids were misbehaving, so he decided to turn a bus of screaming, crying children around and drive back to school — away from their waiting parents.

Oh, HELL no.

Here’s the video:

The scene looks like complete chaos, and some of the children may well have been misbehaving – but this bus driver is totally out of line. Screaming, “Your kid will get off the bus when I’m done with them” to waiting parents? I would have been terrified to see my child crying on a bus while a bus driver who had clearly lost it was yelling. It only makes things worse that he drove away from the parents and back to school.

CBS News reports nearly 40 children were inside the bus. Some parents tried to pry open the doors, some called 911. A parent is heard on a 911 dispatch tape saying, “They’ve been sitting there for ten minutes and he won’t let any of our kids out. The kids are crying. He’s screaming at us. He’s actually driving away with all our kids. He’s got all our kids on the bus.”

Parents were understandably panicked to see the bus driver heading off back to school with their kids still on the bus. They claim he was driving erratically and by the looks of the video, most of the kids were still standing.

The superintendent of the school said it was not the driver’s usual route.

Many of the comments on the story are slamming parents for not disciplining their kids and making someone else do it for them. But the bus was at the stop, and parents were waiting to receive their children: let them do the disciplining. There has to be a better way to deal with rowdy children on a bus than locking doors, screaming at children, and essentially losing it. If there were rowdy children on the bus causing issues, take that up with the school the next day — don’t terrify the rest of the kids.

It’s no doubt a hard job. But, no. Refusing to release children to their parents is not okay.

Related post: 10 Things Not To Say To Your Kids’ Bus Driver