Northwest School Bus Video Goes Viral
According to the person who made the post, the video was captured on Thursday morning, October, 15th.
It has been shared 380 times. The average person has 338 friends on Facebook. Statistically, 128,440 people have been presented with this video.
The “panic attack” starts about 1 minute and 20 seconds into the video. From there, it just gets more and more cringeworthy.
The post reads, in part “On our way to school this morning we got a car behind a school bus nothing unusual about that, we were going up 348 from Otway when I started to notice the bus driver was weaving a little we keep watch and as we started to top the heal it got way worse with her going left of center and off the road on the right-hand side. That’s when I knew something was wrong and needed to video what was happening. It’s a good bit of video but if you watch all the way through, you will see this bus almost wrecks several times.”
She indicated that she confronted the bus driver at the school and observed that the driver had slurred speech and was having trouble keeping their eyes opened.
After hundreds of comments, the post was updated with more information. She stated that she did also make contact with “the principal and the administrator’s office”. Also, clarifying that there was no cell phone service in that area to call Ohio State Highway Patrol.
According to her statement, she rescheduled prior appointments to “make sure I got ahold of all the right people”.
At this time, the video had not been posted to social media. It was only after she observed the same driver back behind the wheel later in the day that she felt compelled to share the video and make these public statements.
We have reached out to the Northwest School District Superintendent and the school’s Transportation Director. In addition, we have contacted Children’s Services.
Jason Mantell, the Director of Children’s Services said “Due to the nature of the situation (motor vehicle allegation), this would typically be addressed by the school district and law enforcement on the front end. With that, if there were children on the bus and the allegations are believed to be legitimate, law enforcement would contact us and we would address the matter appropriately.”
If any of the other officials respond, we will update this story.
Today marks the beginning of National School Bus Safety Week. Ohio State Troopers will be highly visible this week along school bus routes and in school zones to ensure the safety of students.
As the news day has progressed, many parents from the Northwest School District have contacted SCDN. According to those reports, the driver in the video DID have children on board. Further, they stated the driver remained on the job. Several parents “tagged” the bus supervisor in original the social media post and received no response.
The parents also identified the driver. We will be holding that information, for now.
Updated 10-20-20
SCDN has been informed by our team of concerned parents that the bus driver has resigned from the Northwest School District. While we had obtained the driver’s information, we held it back to allow officials to conduct their internal investigation.
We are told that the action came at a board meeting this evening. The driver asked to resign. In addition, we are told, the Transportation Supervisor is likely facing disciplinary actions. One item of note, the parents wanted to stress, was that the driver was not intoxicated but has a medical condition. We verified that with our other sources who are familiar with the driver’s situation.
A source familiar with the meeting said, “The supervisor brushed it off. The driver asked to resign.”
A public statement from the Northwest Schools Superintendent, Todd Jenkins, is expected this week.