A California school bus ride ended with children climbing out windows, a parent climbing in through one, broken glass, and an arrest after what the school district described as student behavior concerns escalated along the route.
The incident happened Monday, Aug. 24, on Highway 49 near Russell Road in Calaveras County, where a Calaveras Unified School District bus stopped with students aboard. The district has not publicly explained the behavior that prompted the stop beyond saying it eventually required law enforcement involvement.
A 12-year-old passenger told KCRA that another student climbed through a window after the bus had stopped. The driver then told the remaining students to sit down and roll up the windows, the child said, and told them they would have to wait for law enforcement before getting off.
Parents who spoke with the station said the students were on the stopped bus for about an hour as parents began arriving. That account establishes how long the situation lasted from their perspective, but publicly available information does not establish that deputies took an hour to respond after being called.
Going Out The Window
Embedded media follows; please allow a moment to load.
As the bus remained stopped, some parents reached very different conclusions about what they should do.
Nichole Wellington told KCRA that her son called her from the bus frightened, prompting her to drive to the scene. She said she went to the door and asked the driver to let her have her child.
The driver refused, Wellington said.
She eventually told her son he could climb out through a window.
Video from aboard the bus shows students using the windows to get out while people gathered outside. It later shows an adult going the opposite direction, climbing through a bus window and confronting the driver inside.
The Calaveras County Sheriff’s Office said deputies responded to a disturbance involving a parent and the driver. According to the Sheriff’s Office, the parent struck the bus door during the incident and broke its glass.
The parent was taken into custody for vandalism at the school district’s request, the Sheriff’s Office said.
The agency also addressed the less conventional exits.
“School bus safety rules exist to protect students and should be followed by both students and parents,” the Sheriff’s Office said, according to local coverage. It added that bus windows should be used as exits only during an emergency.
Two Choices
Not every parent who arrived decided that a window was the way forward.
Rebecca Glover told KCRA that two of her children were aboard the bus. When she reached the scene, she instructed them to remain seated and wait.
Glover said the driver had more than an individual student’s wishes to consider because he remained responsible for everyone aboard.
“There was not just one child they had to think of,” Glover said. “They had to think of every single child on that bus at that time.”
Wellington saw the problem differently. She said she believed the situation could have gone differently had the driver released children to parents who were already there.
She also suggested that another adult aboard buses could help drivers manage student behavior while the driver concentrates on driving.
The two reactions left the same stopped bus producing two very different parental instructions: one child was told he could come out the window, while two others were told to stay in their seats.
What Started It
Calaveras Unified Superintendent Kassie Meeks said the episode began with student behavior concerns.
“Yesterday, student behavior concerns on a district bus escalated and ultimately required law enforcement involvement,” Meeks said in a statement reported by FOX40 and other local outlets.
The district declined to provide more detail because students and law enforcement were involved.
One bus route was affected the following day, Tuesday, Aug. 25, according to Meeks.
That leaves an important limitation on the available account. The district has not publicly described exactly what the students were doing before the bus stopped, and the available reporting does not support filling that gap with assumptions about what prompted each later decision.
What is established is considerably stranger on its own: the bus stopped over student behavior concerns, a student went through a window, the driver told the remaining students to stay seated and wait for law enforcement, parents arrived, more children came out through windows, and a parent eventually climbed inside.
By the time deputies became involved, the Sheriff’s Office said, the bus door’s glass had been broken and a parent was headed into custody for vandalism.