GILLETTE, Wyo. — A 13-year-old Sage Valley Junior High student was left alone at the aquatic center earlier this month after being put on the wrong bus, raising concerns from the child’s parents about how the situation was handled.
The incident happened April 8 and involved Kimberly Coleman and Michael Meade’s seventh-grade son.
“Our son, he’s severely autistic. He has no communication skills,” said his mother, Kimberly Coleman. His father, Michael Meade, agreed.
The boy takes part in Special Olympics swimming, but there was no practice that day because of upcoming regionals. However, he was put on a bus from Sage Valley to the aquatic center. His regular aide, required under his Individual Education Plan, was out sick. Coleman said the plan makes it clear that her son requires a one-on-one aide at all times.
“When the bus driver got to the aquatic center, she let him off the bus and drove away,” Coleman said. “A different swim coach for another swim team showed up and my son was alone in the aquatic center by himself running around.”
Coleman and Meade arrived shortly after and found him with that coach and Special Olympics staff.
Coleman said the situation could have ended up being much worse.
“The door to the pool was left open and my son was completely alone in the pool area,” she said. “He could have easily drowned or could have easily run away. He was put in a very dangerous situation by the school.”
Meade agreed.
“He could have drowned. He could have walked off. He could have been abducted. He could have gotten hit by a car,” he said. “My son could have not come home that day.”
The parents said they got mixed responses from the school district. Coleman said the head of buses for students with disabilities first told her the bus barn didn’t know practice was canceled. Later, she said they were told the driver knew but had forgotten.
In a private meeting, the parents said district officials took responsibility but also blamed the Special Olympics team.
“They basically said that the bus barn takes accountability for what happened, but it’s the Special Olympics team’s fault,” Meade said.
According to Coleman and Meade, the driver has previously faced complaints from other parents of students with disabilities.
“Why is this driver still driving a school bus in general, but why is this driver driving special needs students around?” Meade said.
After Coleman posted about the incident on Facebook, she said a number of people commented with similar concerns.
“There’s probably 20, 30 people that have commented saying for years there’s been issues with the bus barn and the school district kind of just blows it under the rug,” she said.
The parents said a school board member told them the issue would be discussed at the April 14 school board meeting. They went and sat for about four hours, but said it never came up.
County 17 reached out to school board members for comment on the issue. Trustee Mary Brunner explained that situations like these cannot be brought up in a public setting like a school board meeting.
“We are unable to discuss issues like this in the public forum. I had informed the mother that I would address this issue with the board and administration and I believe she mistook that to mean it would be done publicly,” Brunner said in an email to County 17. “The board chair, myself and appropriate administrator were able to sit down with both parents after our meeting last Tuesday to walk through the changes in process that have been made to ensure an incident like this doesn’t happen again. … We are grateful the student was OK.”
However, Coleman said the meeting felt like the district was avoiding the issue rather than following confidentiality requirements.
“The school district doesn’t seem to want this situation made public or to take accountability for this,” she said. “They just seem to want to push this under the rug and not deal with it.”
Although the boy was not hurt in this situation, his parents say they are still upset and want to see accountability.
Coleman said a potential solution to the issue could feature parents of students with disabilities being given direct phone access to bus drivers.
“We do feel that they need to implement a rule where the special needs students’ parents have a direct number to the bus drivers at all times,” Coleman said. “By the time we got ahold of the special needs bus head, he was already in a bad situation.”
