For more than four hours, six nonverbal students with special needs were unaccounted for after their school bus traveled to incorrect locations around Brooklyn last year, prompting school officials to contact police, according to a watchdog investigation released Friday.<\/p>\n
The students, ages 6 to 8, were supposed to arrive at school around 9 a.m. but did not get there until about 1:25 p.m., according to the report from the city\u2019s Special Commissioner of Investigation for the city\u2019s public schools.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey should have arrived to school by roughly 9 o\u2019clock, and they didn\u2019t arrive until almost 1:30 in the afternoon,\u201d Special Commissioner Anastasia Coleman said.<\/p>\n
The bus\u2019s location was tracked by a parent who had placed AirTags in the backpacks of her two children aboard the bus. Coleman said the parent watched as the bus traveled to incorrect locations and repeatedly called for information.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was looking and watching and pretty frantic about it and calling, rightfully so,\u201d Coleman said.<\/p>\n
The bus was driven by Eric Chery, a fill-in driver with less than three weeks on the job, and had a matron, Germina Thomas, who had worked in the role for nearly 20 years. Both worked for Consolidated Bus Transit, one of more than 50 companies contracted to transport students in the city\u2019s public school system.<\/p>\n
School officials contacted the bus company at 10 a.m. and reported the situation to the city\u2019s Office of Pupil Transportation.<\/p>\n
At 11:45 a.m., the company told the school the driver was lost but expected to arrive within 15 minutes. The bus did not arrive for another hour and 40 minutes. By then, police had been contacted.<\/p>\n
According to the report, when the bus finally arrived, a person who spoke with investigators \u201cboarded the bus and observed that Student A had urinated on herself and removed her diaper and leggings, with her dress still on.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was pretty hard. If you think about any child and then throw in that they\u2019re special ed in diapers, being on a bus that long is a pretty terrible situation to be in,\u201d Coleman said.<\/p>\n
Chery told investigators he had driven to two incorrect schools before receiving the correct address at 10:40 a.m.<\/p>\n
He said he did not arrive sooner because he had to stop to take phone calls from the bus company and parents. He also told investigators he was not fluent in English.<\/p>\n
Thomas told investigators she did not speak to the driver during the incident or attempt to contact the school, bus depot or anyone else.<\/p>\n
Coleman said the incident was serious enough to warrant a formal investigation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt rose to a certain level of egregiousness where we said we needed to investigate this one,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The investigation recommended that Chery and Thomas no longer work with students from the city\u2019s Department of Education.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe made the recommendation that they do not work with DOE students,\u201d Coleman said.<\/p>\n
A spokeswoman for Consolidated Bus Transit did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
The company told the Daily News that both employees had been placed on administrative leave since the incident and were not permitted to use the company\u2019s buses or interact with students.<\/p>\n