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5-year-old boy left alone sleeping inside school bus
By Denise Dick
youngstowN
A substitute bus driver left a 5-year-old boy on the school bus this week after the child had fallen asleep.
Grace Evans said she received a call from her worried daughter Tuesday evening, when Evans’ grandson didn’t come home from school.
Bresean Black, who is in kindergarten at Martin Luther King Elementary School, had fallen asleep on the school bus, Evans said.
When he awoke, he got out of the bus and was found by another bus driver, she said.
“He was scared,” Evans said, but not injured.
Superintendent Wendy Webb said the driver was a substitute and he has been disciplined.
“Because he’s a substitute, we don’t have to use him anymore,” she said, adding that the district won’t use him again.
Drivers are supposed to check their buses at the end of the day.
“From time to time, children do fall asleep on the bus and when they’re in the seat, you can’t see them,” the superintendent said.
There’s a sign that drivers are to carry to the back of the bus when it’s parked, announcing that the vehicle is empty.
Evans says her grandson was wandering around in the dark and was wet from the rain.
Webb disputes that. The bus area is enclosed and well lighted, she said.
“As soon as he got off of the bus, he was spotted,” she said.
The district moved the bus garage from an industrial park on Albert Street to a new facility on Teamsters Drive. One reason the district wanted to move it was safety concerns.
“There’s no room for error when you’re dealing with children, but there is human error,” Webb said.