Officials: School bus driver left students on bus while he stopped at home
News 12 has learned the driver stopped at his house to pick up paperwork with the bus route on it.
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A school bus driver who works for Jay’s Bus Service has been barred from driving students from the Freehold Regional School District.
Officials say that on Monday he was driving home students from Howell High School. News 12 has learned he stopped at his home to pick up the bus route while the students were on board.
Marley Arello is a Howell High School student who was on that bus. She says they were left alone for four to five minutes. The engine was running, and the door was open while the driver ran inside his house to grab a folder with the bus route says Arello.
“Some kids were standing up in their seats. I know one kid was taking a video, another FaceTime their mom and everything,” Arello says. “And a couple of minutes later he comes back with a folder saying, ‘Oh it would’ve been like a bad day without this.”
Her father Russ Arello says it was bad judgment on the driver’s part.
“Someone else could’ve come on the bus, drove away with it,” Russ Arello says. “One of the kids could’ve gotten the other kids hurt on the bus.”
A spokesperson for the school district wrote in a statement, “The bus was parked outside the driver’s home for approximately three minutes and no students left the bus during that time.”
Jay’s Bus Service has not offered a response to the incident.
The school district was required to notify the state about what happened.
The name of the driver was not released.
