Bus driver leaves four-year-old at stranger's house

Monday, February 20, 2006

Stephanie Guadian
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By Stephanie Guadian

(2/20/06 - KTRK/DAYTON, TX) (KTRK) -- All a four-year-old boy wanted to do was go to the bathroom. Now a Dayton ISD bus driver is suspended for what happened next. That bus driver is in hot water for leaving the child alone while she continued with her bus route.

There's a certain amount of trust involved when a parent places a child on a school bus. Last Monday Gina Gewaltney waved goodbye to her son Cameron, never imagining the four-year-old would end up inside a stranger's house.

"I had to go potty real bad," he recalled.

Cameron was apparently crying when he told his school bus driver he had to use the restroom. It's what happened next that has the child's mother furious.

Gewaltney said, "My daughter, when she got off the bus that Monday, said, 'Mama, guess what? They let Cameron off at a stranger's house to go to the bathroom and left him there.' She continued on the route."

A representative for Dayton ISD says the bus driver stopped at another child's house and told Cameron to go inside and use the restroom.

"She lets him off the bus, she continues on her route," said Gewaltney. "She comes back around, waits another five minutes for him to come out. When he didn't come out, she sent my eight-year-old daughter off the bus at the same stranger's house to go and get him."

"I went all by myself," said Cameron.

Cameron said Daniel's parents were in the home. The problem? Cameron's mother doesn't know Daniel or his parents. She filed a complaint with Dayton ISD. After an investigation, officials decided to suspend the bus driver for a week and a half.

Gewaltney said, "It needs to be guaranteed that these bus drivers know that if this happens again, that they will be fired on the spot. Because if they don't do that and something like this happens again, a child's going to wind up dead and then it's going to be too late."

Dayton ISD policy requires drivers to drop students off only at school or their homes.
(Copyright © 2006, KTRK-TV)

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