Fired bus driver sues for benefits

WARREN — A former Warren school bus driver, fired after a 5-year-old boy was knocked unconscious during a fight on her bus Feb. 10, 2006, has appealed an Ohio Unemployment Compensation Review Commission decision denying her unemployment benefits.

Irene Foundoulis of Arthur Drive Northwest filed the recent appeal in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court, naming the Warren City Schools and the administrator of the Ohio Department of Job And Family Services, which oversees the state’s UCRC, as defendants.

Foundoulis had also sued the school district last March, asking that it reinstate her to the job and give her back pay and seniority. Last fall,   Common Pleas Judge John M. Stuard ruled that Foundoulis had no basis for that suit and dismissed it.

This latest action is assigned to Judge Peter Kontos.

School officials said Foundoulis was fired because of a variety of actions the day the student was injured, such as allowing a 10-year-old girl who she knew to be misbehaving to sit in the back of the bus, where she assaulted the 5-year-old; allowing students to stand in the aisle of the bus; and allowing the noise level to get   so high that she did not respond when students tried to inform her of the injury to the 5-year-old.

School officials said the boy lay motionless in the bus aisle for more than five minutes without the driver’s knowledge. The episode was videtaped. The injured child recovered and the 10-year-old girl was expelled.