CASTLE ROCK, Colo. (KDVR) — Parents in one Colorado town are demanding answers from school and district staff after a bus driver dropped 40 elementary school children off near a cemetery and not at their bus stop.
The incident happened after school Monday on a route that serves students at Clear Sky Elementary in Castle Rock, about 30 miles south of Denver.
Douglas County School District released the following statement: “We are in contact with the families of the 40 students who were dropped off yesterday at a different area than their regular bus stop after school. This is incredibly concerning as the safety of our students is always our priority. We will continue to partner with the Castle Rock Police Department (CRPD) on this matter and the bus driver is currently on leave while we conduct our own internal investigation.”
According to multiple parents, a substitute school bus driver was behind the wheel. DCSD has not confirmed that information.
Parents scramble to locate children in ‘random’ locations
“She’s normally dropped off around 4:15 in the neighborhood, pretty much right at the corner,” Tony Martin told Nexstar’s KDVR.
Martin said he got a message from the SMART Tag Parent app the bus carrying his 8-year-old daughter home from school would be delayed Monday afternoon. It is not unusual for the bus to be delayed due to traffic, he explained.
The app then showed his daughter was dropped off at 4:45 p.m. However, she was about a mile and a half from her stop.
“Another kid from another family, one street above us, came by and stopped and asked if she was home, and we were like, no. We had assumed she was just playing with her friends while walking this way,” Martin recounted.
Martin said the boy told them he was “dropped off several neighborhoods away from where he was supposed to be” and that Martin’s daughter was “dropped off somewhere else randomly.”
The father said he started to panic as he learned more about his daughter’s journey home from school that day.
“The bus driver had missed several stops. And when the GPS was telling him to go right he would take a left or it would say go straight he would make a random turn. So he had no idea what he was doing or where he was going,” Martin claimed.
According to Martin and several other parents who spoke off-camera to KDVR, the driver became frustrated and ordered the children off the bus outside Cedar Hill Cemetery. Some of the areas the children had to navigate also lacked sidewalks.
“Several kids were crying and being hysterical because their stops were missed, and they didn’t know what was going on,” Martin said.
Parents, students say driver was threatening violence
Multiple parents also said their children reported the driver using vulgar language and threats toward the students.
“When she got home she was very hysterical, traumatized. Uncontrollably crying because she said ‘I felt like I was being kidnapped,’” Martin said of his daughter.
Another parent, Ashley Stark, told KDVR her daughters were aboard the bus and heard the driver making threats before they left the school parking lot.
“He proceeded to tell them that he was an Army veteran and that he was bigger, stronger, tougher, braver than all the children. If they didn’t be quiet then there would be consequences,” Stark explained.
Her daughter, Caitlyn Zavadil, said things got worse when the driver began passing bus stops.
“When I say all, I mean everybody’s stops,” she said. “I was very nervous. I felt like I was getting kidnapped when he was skipping our stops. I just didn’t think I was going to make it home that night.”
When the bus stopped, another parent described the scene as “chaotic” and “heartbreaking.”
“It felt as if there was an active shooter on that bus the way these children were just running from it, running out of it, running through traffic, scattering all over the place. In a sea full of children I’m out of my car where it’s parked I’m looking for my daughter,” said Savanna Keisling.
Strangers ensured children were safe, reunited with parents
Keisling managed to find her daughter, then picked up Caitlyn and her sister on a street corner as they were trying to figure out what to do since they lived two miles away from where they were dropped off.
“I had gotten out of my car, I stopped traffic, I told the girls do they need a ride home? ‘I’m a safe person, my daughter is in the car,’ like ‘let me get you safe.’ And they, I mean, just jumped in the car. They were cold,” Keisling said.
Stark then got a phone call from Keisling who told her she was on the way with her daughters.
“A stranger, bless her heart, brought my children home. But yeah… to have a stranger bring my children home was one of the scariest things,” Stark recounted.
Castle Rock police officers were dispatched to locate missing children after the incident Monday night. Other strangers also pulled over to pick up Martin’s daughter.
“Luckily it was a gentleman, we don’t know — we don’t know his name or exactly who he was, but he brought her home. The only reason she got in the car with him is because she knew the little girl from her school,” he said.
Martin said he is now considering getting his third-grader a cell phone for emergencies. He is also questioning if he can trust the Douglas County School District to keep his child safe.
“This is unacceptable and sorry will never be enough,” he said.