The Olympia School District is installing alarms in its fleet of school buses after a pre-schooler was left unattended in a parked bus for more than an hour.
The driver violated district policy on November 15 when he failed to walk to the back of the bus to ensure no belongings or students had been left behind.
About an hour after the bus was parked, an inspector from the Washington State Patrol found the boy sitting in one of the back rows.
“Whoa, how long have you been there, bud?” the inspector can be heard asking on bus surveillance video.
The boy was not injured.
Following a district investigation, the driver resigned.
He was going to be fired.
A paraeducator who was on the bus as a monitor was placed on paid administrative leave for 6.5 days.
She was not fired because a district spokesperson said as a monitor, the woman was not required to walk through the bus at the end of the shifts.
Approximately 10 percent of Olympia’s buses have alarms to ensure drivers walk through and inspect them, but after the November incident, the district said the alarms would be installed in every bus by the end of the school year.
The drivers will have to press a button at the back of the bus to prevent the alarm from going off.
While all of the bus drivers were trained in August to walk through the bus at the end of their rides, the district is having transportation employees repeat the training.
According to the district spokesperson, 76 bus drivers, 17 bus monitors, and four mechanics will be re-trained.