NorthwestSeptember 7, 2024

Lewiston Schools’ review raises no conduct concerns

Matt Baney Lewiston Tribune

Lewiston School District officials decided this week that a bus driver properly handled a situation in which she drove the bus back to school because of concerns about student behavior.

Officials reviewed video footage inside the bus of the Aug. 30 incident, and it “didn’t show anything of concern with what the bus driver did or didn’t do,” Superintendent Lance Hansen said Friday.

The incident started, Hansen said, when the driver tried to address a student’s behavior. When the student didn’t comply, she pulled the bus into a safe area and called the district’s transportation headquarters, which told her to drive the bus back to Jenifer Middle School, where she had picked up the students minutes earlier at the end of the school day.

When the bus returned to Jenifer, it was a few moments before Principal Aaron DeLane came to meet it. While waiting for him to arrive, the driver didn’t open the bus’s door, and a few students responded by climbing out of the windows, as seen on videos posted online that have gotten lots of social media attention in the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley.

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After DeLane arrived and allowed the students to exit the bus, some of them appeared to be upset or frustrated. The students were picked up by their parents or guardians and taken home.

The district doesn’t plan on changing its policies, Hansen said, but has discussed some adjustments that could be made. DeLane’s arrival at the bus was delayed because he was in a meeting, and the school’s assistant principal was at a funeral that day.

“It’s a discussion point,” Hansen said. “We’re going through (this scenario) and saying, ‘What’s our backup plan?’ I don’t necessarily think we’ll say, ‘Hey, we’re going to do this differently.’ (But) we know the timing could have been improved.”

Baney may be contacted at mbaney@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2251. Follow him on Twitter @MattBaney_Trib.

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