GUILTY TN - Six elementary students killed in Chattanooga school bus crash, 21 Nov 2016

[CARIIS]

exactly my point,

wait till the investigation is over,

In addition, it would not be like he was not putting
his life in danger also. He had a three year old.

I think the long weekend slowed everything. Hopefully we can see the video tomm

 

[K_Z]

In this day and age, all bus drivers (school and city buses) have the ability to communicate with their dispatchers. Drivers are REQUIRED to communicate situations where a diversion from route is necessary due to traffic, unsafe road conditions (like ice, etc), or an accident. They cannot simply change the route on their own judgement without telling dispatch. The fact that JW's bus was "discovered" to be off route is very telling-- he did not communicate the diversion to anyone in dispatch, or have permission to divert his route.

In our area, metro buses, light rail, and heavy rail are also tracked with GPS. I know school buses have GPS data stored, but I'm not sure if school buses can be tracked in real time or not, or perhaps they only call up real time data if there is a delay or problem and the driver is not responding. IMO, all school buses should be able to be tracked in real time, and parents should be able to subscribe to the real time data for the bus their child rides. That's such a cheap and easy implementation, I can't believe it hasn't been done nationwide. That could add a layer of safety for all kids, as their responsible adults could subscribe to their bus routes and know on their smart phones when they are on time or delayed, bus speed, and where the bus is.

If my daughter is late to school due to a metro transportation delay, I am able to obtain the GPS data from her bus or train route to ensure her tardy is excused, versus unexcused.

 

[Elley Mae]

In this day and age, all bus drivers (school and city buses) have the ability to communicate with their dispatchers. Drivers are REQUIRED to communicate situations where a diversion from route is necessary due to traffic, unsafe road conditions (like ice, etc), or an accident. They cannot simply change the route on their own judgement without telling dispatch. The fact that JW's bus was "discovered" to be off route is very telling-- he did not communicate the diversion to anyone in dispatch, or have permission to divert his route.




In our area, metro buses, light rail, and heavy rail are also tracked with GPS. I know school buses have GPS data stored, but I'm not sure if school buses can be tracked in real time or not, or perhaps they only call up real time data if there is a delay or problem and the driver is not responding. IMO, all school buses should be able to be tracked in real time, and parents should be able to subscribe to the real time data for the bus their child rides. That's such a cheap and easy implementation, I can't believe it hasn't been done nationwide. That could add a layer of safety for all kids, as their responsible adults could subscribe to their bus routes and know on their smart phones when they are on time or delayed, bus speed, and where the bus is.

If my daughter is late to school due to a metro transportation delay, I am able to obtain the GPS data from her bus or train route to ensure her tardy is excused, versus unexcused.

bbm, Exactly. While living in rural virginia I would listen to scanner dispatcher/bus drivers and they never left their route and if they did it was dispatched back with the reason for doing so. Buses run on a schedule when picking up and dropping off. Buses would NOT drop off a young one without someone there to pick them up, I mean they would drive them back to the school and dispatch would call the parent saying no one was there to receive the child. It was not a free for all to drive the way you wanted to drive. I listened one day and the police were called to have an officer go to the food lion and get two kids off the bus to take home because they were acting up. This guy should never have been driving a bus. jmo idk

 

[al66pine]

"Taking a bus to school is the safest way to go, statistics show. But accidents sometimes happen, and children may face other hazards on a bus besides the risk of being hurt in a crash. When it comes to getting kids safely to and from school, there's always room for improvement.
"The safety record of school transportation is just about untouched by any other mode," Eric Bolton, spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), tells WebMD.
Every year school buses carry some 24 million students and collectively travel more than 4 billion miles. Considering how many kids the buses carry and the distance they cover, deaths on the road are extremely rare. School buses have a rate of 0.2 deaths per 100 million miles traveled. The rate of deaths in automobiles is eight times higher.
That's how safety officials like to put it, because it's a statistically accurate way of comparing risks. Here's another way to look at it: Over a span of 11 years, from 1994-2004, a total of 71 passengers on school buses died in crashes. In the year 2004 alone, traffic accidents killed 31,693 people traveling in cars and light trucks.
No matter how impressive statistics involving millions of kids and billions of miles are, they tend to pale when we hear the name of a single child who has come to harm, especially when that harm could have been prevented." bbm

http://www.webmd.com/parenting/features/child-safety-school-bus-still-best#1
N.B.: dated 2006, so ^ statistics are not current. I wonder what they are now but a quick search did not locate updates.

^ is no consolation to students on the Tenn bus, or to their families. Sad, sad, sad.

 

[K_Z]

I couldn't agree more. IMHO, school districts that contract with outside companies to bus students need to rewrite those contracts to include the ability to reject drivers.

A principal who she saw the bus going too fast leaving the school should not have to try to find a way to get that driver out of the system. It should take one phone call!

Sorry, I have little patience when it comes to the safety of children.
Driving too fast, going a different route, etc., are not acceptable.

I'm curious to see if his speed can be determined. Based on the damage to the bus it must have hit with tremendous force. I can't believe it happened at 25 or 30 mph. Crime scene recreation will be critical to the case against the driver, imho.

Excellent post, and I agree 100% that the district should retain a "first right of rejection" for drivers. Districts maintain strict control over all other employees who have any contact with children, including background checks for volunteers, etc. It flies in the face of all reason that when a bus service is contracted, we simply "hand over" the kids and their safety to the contractor without a mechanism for the district to monitor, dispute, or control the drivers. This is what I meant in my earlier post about the confusion of parents over contracted bus services. Most parents have a sort of fuzzy idea that a "company" provides the buses and maintenance, but have no idea of the official conditions of the relationship between the district and the contractor. Parents largely don't know who "owns" the problem when there is a problem, and who they should go to first, and who has the authority to "fix" the problem. In 2016, this is not an acceptable situation, IMO. There should be substantially more transparency in that process, the hiring of drivers, etc.

As far as his speed, I'm pretty confident they know exactly how fast the bus was going at the time of the accident. I think that's why JW was arrested and charged so swiftly. A school bus isn't torn in half at speeds of 25-35 mph in a residential neighborhood. My guess is he was driving around 60 mph, or possibly faster.

I don't think he was "trying" to kill the kids, either. I think he was intentionally driving like an irresponsible, immature, impulsive, criminally negligent jerk. That's manslaughter, IMO. Not an "accident". Hopefully, he'll soon have at least 40-50 years to think about that in prison.

 

[K_Z]

On Nov. 2, a school official boarded the bus after the driver complained that students were not listening him. One student had complained about the heat on the bus and cursed about it to the bus driver.

“The driver was now visibly upset and continued on by saying that he had another job and driving this bus was just a part-time job for him,” wrote Carlis Shackelford, a behavior specialist at the school. “Driver stated that he could just leave him at the school. He then stated ‘or I can just leave the student on the bus and I will get off the bus and leave the school.’”

“Driver stated that he did not care about the students and proceeded to tell the students he did not care about them,” Shackelford wrote.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/chattanooga-tennessee-school-bus-crash-johntony-walker-complaints/

So, even with the school psychologist (or social worker?) on board to observe the interactions between this driver and the kids, JW felt comfortable and free to make these incredibly inappropriate comments out loud??!! That right there should have been grounds to immediately stop the bus, place the driver on suspension, and supply a substitute driver for the remainder of the route.

The behavior specialist Shackleford (doing the ride along) should have immediately contacted administration and dispatch, IMO.

Lots of administrators are complicit in this tragedy, IMO.

 

[Elley Mae]

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/chattanooga-tennessee-school-bus-crash-johntony-walker-complaints/

So, even with the school psychologist (or social worker?) on board to observe the interactions between this driver and the kids, JW felt comfortable and free to make these incredibly inappropriate comments out loud??!! That right there should have been grounds to immediately stop the bus, place the driver on suspension, and supply a substitute driver for the remainder of the route.

The behavior specialist Shackleford (doing the ride along) should have immediately contacted administration and dispatch, IMO.

Lots of administrators are complicit in this tragedy, IMO.

bbm

http://www.imgrum.net/user/izoneconnect/347273758/1278573967337765996_347273758

Congratulations to the May 2016 Woodmore Elementary Innovator of the Month, Mr. Carlis Shackleford! For more information on the innovative practices Mr. Shackleford is implementing at WES please visit our website www.hcde.org/izone and click on the Innovators of the Month tab.

 

[K_Z]

bbm

http://www.imgrum.net/user/izoneconnect/347273758/1278573967337765996_347273758

Congratulations to the May 2016 Woodmore Elementary Innovator of the Month, Mr. Carlis Shackleford! For more information on the innovative practices Mr. Shackleford is implementing at WES please visit our website www.hcde.org/izone and click on the Innovators of the Month tab.

Good grief. Can it get any worse?:gaah:

 

[K_Z]

Walker was in custody at the Hamilton County Correctional Facility on Friday and had a court hearing scheduled for Tuesday. Jail records do not indicate whether he has an attorney.

http://newschannel9.com/news/local/...y-walkers-driving-released-by-hamilton-county

So Tuesday there will be more info.

Interesting that he apparently hasn't posted bail, or requested a court appointed attorney if he can't afford one. He is being held on $104,000 bond, IIRC.

Coulter, the school district's transportation supervisor, said in a Nov. 2 email to Durham manager Domenic D'Amico that the Woodmore principal had to intervene several times when Walker was arguing with students.

"This may be a situation where he needs to be coached on how to deal with the students," Coulter wrote.

IMO, this was a situation where he should have been given the opportunity to seek other employment. It's not like he had one argument and was otherwise a stellar or valuable employee. At the time of this email, JW had just had the first bus accident only a week or so prior, and had several complaints that we know of. JW was replaceable, and should have been replaced in his job as a driver, IMO. If the bus company thought he was so valuable as an employee, they could have found other work for him to do, IMO. Clerical work, clean and wash buses, etc.

Both the school and the bus company are intentionally obfuscating, IMO, as they each huddle and plan to deflect as much responsibility as possible. Media had to file FOIA to get the little that we have so far from the school, and we don't have anything public yet from the bus company.

In the days immediately after the crash, school officials repeatedly declined to comment on whether anyone had complained or how they responded. The correspondence about the driver was released after public records requests by The Associated Press and other media outlets.

Hamilton County schools spokeswoman Amy Katcher noted that Walker was employed by outside contractor Durham School Services, so the district may not have access to all the complaints about him.

The bus company has not responded to questions about its safety record or Walker's employment history. Durham CEO David A. Duke released a video this week statement expressing condolences to the families and pledging to work with investigators.

 

[Elley Mae]

Neighbors said Walker would ride his skateboard down to the bus stop to go to work. They said he’s pretty quiet.

Walker is being held at the Hamilton County Jail on $107,500 bond. He’s due in court Nov. 29.

http://www.wsmv.com/story/33777782/neighbors-of-chattanooga-school-bus-driver-speak-out

bbm

 

[Jax49]

http://www.wsmv.com/slideshow?widgetid=191747

The victims.

 

[Jax49]

http://wate.com/2016/11/26/funeral-service-being-held-for-9-year-old-bus-crash-victim/

Saturday, loved ones gathered to say a tearful goodbye to a 9-year-old killed in a school bus crash in Chattanooga.
The funeral for Cor’Dayja Jones took place at Redemption Point Church. She was a member of the children’s choir there.

A spokesperson for Children’s Hospital at Erlanger says five children still remain at the hospital, however one child has been updated to fair condition. That makes three listed in critical, two in fair.

 

[KaaBoom]

Durnham bus:$14.39 hr

min wage $7.25

[TABLE="width: 514"]
[/TABLE]
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=tenn mnimum wage

That would be about $60 a day.

 

[bluesneakers]

That would be about $60 a day.

I wonder how someone could have two jobs with the weird hours a school bus driver has?

 

[killarney rose]

I wonder how someone could have two jobs with the weird hours a school bus driver has?

It's easy. When I worked at Walmart, there were several associates that worked their hours around their school bus routes.

 

[Jax49]

http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/...tal-bus-crash-chattanoogstands-strong/399870/

But there is also a lot of healing and repair that money can't buy, Adams said, because families facing the loss of a child, or one with severe injuries. These families are going to need long-term counseling and increased support systems, he said."I still hear cries. I wake up every morning hearing the cries from those parents in those hospital rooms," said Adams, who was at the hospital Monday night when parents were learning their children died in the crash.
"Nobody can prepare for this type of loss," he said. "This is new to these parents. This is new to us."

 

[Elley Mae]

I wonder how someone could have two jobs with the weird hours a school bus driver has?

I posted up thread the Amazon said the last day he was on the (schedule to work) was the Saturday before the accident on Tuesday.

They didn't say he worked that Saturday.


Hart said they are aware that the driver had another job, working seasonally for Amazon. He said they are looking into whether that contributed to driver fatigue.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/tennessee-school-bus-crash-probe-alcohol-drugs-johnthony-walker-blood/


Amazon confirmed to Channel 4 that Walker was last scheduled to work there this past Saturday.

http://www.wsmv.com/story/33777194/vigil-held-for-students-killed-in-chattanooga-bus-crash

 

[Spellbound]

Walker, Johnthony K
D.O.B. : 7/28/1992 Bond Amount : * $20,000.00
Judge Name : Lila Statom Division : 4
Court Room : 4 Court Time : 8:30 AM
Court Date : 11/29/2016

http://www.hcsheriff.gov/cor/iio/display.php?spn=3bd46bbf550398ea811448ee8f0631b7

- - -
Coulter, the school district's transportation supervisor, said in a Nov. 2 email to Durham manager Domenic D'Amico that the Woodmore principal had to intervene several times when Walker was arguing with students. http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/national-international/Students-Complained-About-Erratic-Driving-Before-School-Bus-Wreck-Chattanooga-403076816.html

- - -
In a statement, the school district acknowledged that its records contained “many emails of complaint and concern.”

About the time that school officials wrote emails expressing alarm about how often Mr. Walker was making referrals for behavioral issues aboard his bus, they also documented concerns about his driving.

“On Tuesday, 11/8, the driver, in my opinion, was driving way too fast when he pulled out of our school,” Woodmore’s principal, Brenda Adamson-Cothran, wrote in an email on Nov. 11. “It was not as bad as yesterday, but still not optimal.”
On Nov. 16, records show, the principal warned in an email that six students had reported that Mr. Walker “was swerving and purposely trying to cause them to fall today.”

The school district said Friday that it “does not have any records of any accidents or disciplinary records pertaining to Durham employees.” A spokeswoman for Durham, Molly Hart, said the company had no comment about the documents the school district released.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/25/us/tennessee-bus-crash-driver-complaints.html?_r=0

 

[Spellbound]

http://wsmv.images.worldnow.com/library/e4db7aa4-6d65-4f7c-ad13-f11a6e57509d.pdf

full crash report document from 9/30/2016 accident

above link was from this article: http://www.wrcbtv.com/story/3377226...bus-driver-was-involved-in-wreck-2-months-ago

 

[Damarna]

I've worked for 2 different school districts. Both contacted their bus services yet both had the say in whether or not someone drove. It wasn't an but automatic thing but the driver would be pulled off the road immediately until the incident was investigated.

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