Sleeping Child On Bus Incident Under Investigation

By John Voket

School Superintendent Janet Robinson told The Newtown Bee Wednesday, September 14, that the district is investigating an incident where a private school kindergartner was found asleep on a school bus when the owner-operator’s final afternoon run ended the previous Friday.

The incident, which happened on the afternoon of Friday, September 9, involved LeReine Frampton. Ms Frampton said it was the first time in 15 years that such an incident occurred on her bus.

But she said that children fall asleep occasionally and miss their stops.

“You hear it on the [school bus] radio all the time. Someone calls in looking for their child because they missed their stop and the driver finds them asleep in their seat,” Ms Frampton said. “When that happens, the driver brings them back home or to their stop when the run is over.”

That being said, Ms Frampton questioned why a regional daily newspaper was calling and questioning her about the incident earlier this week, and was told the newspaper was contacted about the incident by someone from the Newtown District office. Dr Robinson said that the assertion was “definitely not true.”

“The newspaper was not called by the district,” Dr Robinson told The Bee. “You know that’s not how we operate here.”

Dr Robinson also denied a report that she informed Ms Frampton in writing saying if such an incident occurred again, the owner-operator’s contract with the district would be terminated.

“That’s just not true,” she said.

The superintendent told The Bee that several individuals may be called in and questioned as part of an investigation into the incident.

 “We don’t have an official statement,” Dr Robinson said. “We’ll talk to the driver and conduct an investigation. The driver has not been notified of anything in writing regarding her contract.”

 When she eventually dropped off the child, Ms Frampton, who is also the Democratic Town Registrar of Voters, said she was assured the child was fine and “everyone was OK with the situation.” Regardless, said Ms Frampton, she was sick all weekend following the incident.

“She has ridden with me since then, and she loves riding the bus,” Ms Frampton said. “It was the first week of kindergarten, and I think the child was probably just tired.”

Ms Frampton said she was at the second to last stop on her Friday kindergarten run for St Rose School when what she thought were the last students on the bus disembarked.

“I looked around and into the mirror and I didn’t see any children left on the bus, so I proceeded to my next pickup of students from Middle Gate School. I never went to the last stop, which was the stop for that student,” Ms Frampton said. “This was the first time that student was riding with me.”

Ms Frampton said when she arrived at Middle Gate, staff immediately began loading students so she was unable to leave her driver’s seat to walk the aisle to see if anything or anybody was left on board from the kindergarten run.

“What is strange is that none of the Middle Gate kids said anything about the sleeping child that many of them probably saw or walked right by,” Ms Frampton said. “They’ll bring me a pencil they found on the floor, or a note someone left in their seat when they get on the bus, but they never said anything about the sleeping child.”

She said at no time was the child ever left alone on the bus, and that she immediately saw the child curled up in the corner of her seat still sleeping when she completed the Middle Gate run about a half-hour after the original stop was scheduled, and walked the aisle as part of her final routine of the school day.

Ms Frampton also said that there was an unfortunate communication gap when the bus failed to arrive at its stop for the student, because the parents called the St Rose School office instead of the district transportation department.

“But now they have my home and cell number, so they can call me anytime if there are any concerns,” she added. “The only reason they didn’t have it already is because this was the first time I ever had that student as a drop off. But they have it now, like many of the parents on my routes.”

Ms Frampton said despite news of the incident circulating in the media, she wanted to downplay the situation because she did not want to see the child become the subject of any kind of attention or teasing by peers or others on the bus.

Ms Frampton said it was not until the regional news report was published that she was called by the district transportation office and asked to file a routine incident report.

When contacted on September 14, St Rose Monsignor Robert Weiss said that everything was fine and there were no problems in regard to the incident.