Driver reassigned after kindergartner dropped off alone at St. Charles stop

A St. Charles District 303 school bus driver was assigned to another route after leaving a kindergartner alone at a bus stop Wednesday afternoon.

"It was our mistake. It was totally unacceptable to us," Jim Blaney, the district's community and school relations manager, said Thursday.

Blaney said it is against the district's rules for a driver to leave a kindergarten student alone at a bus stop when dropping them off. If no adult is there to meet the student, the driver is supposed to return the student to school. Blaney said the transportation director met with all bus drivers Thursday morning to remind them about the rule.

The girl was to be picked up at Oak and 19th streets in the morning and dropped off at Fifth and State streets in the afternoon. "That's not unusual," Blaney said of the different pickup and drop-off points. The district allows it when the child is being picked up daily from their child-care provider's neighborhood and dropped off in their home neighborhood.

The child's mother told the district she was told by the bus driver Wednesday morning that the girl would be dropped off at 19th and Oak in the afternoon, Blaney said. The bus driver denies telling the mother that, he added.

Regardless of the cause, "Here is where the error was made, and the error is ours," Blaney said.

The district has since changed the girl's busing plan, to have her picked up and dropped off in the same place. The child attends Munhall Elementary School, 1400 S. 13th Ave.

Asked why the bus driver was not fired, Blaney said, "We felt this was the best course of action" after the transportation department director investigated the incident and spoke to the bus driver.

Blaney did not know how long the driver has worked for the district.

The district's bus drivers are covered under a labor contract that expires in 2012. When there is a confirmed offense and/or succeeding offenses, a four-step disciplinary process is spelled out: First there is a verbal warning, followed by a written reprimand, then a suspension without pay and, lastly, discharge. The district reserves the right to move to an advanced step when the "circumstances of a particular case and/or the seriousness of an offense" make progressive discipline "inappropriate," according to the contract.

The contract also specifies that actions taken against an employee shall not be made public, except when required by state law.