Bus delays, upset children: Rochester Memorial School parents call for answers

ROCHESTER — Two moms say their kids have been arriving back at their bus stop late, and frequently emotional, after a new bus driver took over their kids’ route.

These parents of Rochester Memorial School students raised concerns about delays and strange interactions with the driver at the Rochester School Committee’s Thursday, Nov. 12 meeting.

Mary Cronin said her fourth-grade daughter was upset on the first day of school when her old driver was replaced. She was even more upset when the man wouldn’t tell her his name, instead telling her to call him “Mr. Bus Driver.”

“For me, (that’s) a little weird,” Cronin said. “If anything ever happened what am I going to tell them, ‘Mr. Bus Driver’ has my child? But we let it slide.”

She said in the ensuing days the bus dropped her daughter and other students off increasingly late. As they stepped off the very late bus, Cronin said she saw students crying and “sick with anxiety.”

Rachael Smart seconded these concerns, and said there has been communication between parents, school administration and the transportation company, but there have been no meaningful solutions. 

She said on Sept. 10, the day her son’s bus was over half an hour late, her son borrowed a friend’s phone to call her. During that call she said she could hear other students screaming and crying in the background and said the kids left the bus “visibly upset.”

The driver has also yelled at passengers, she said, and which he attributed to misbehavior during a conversation she had with him.

“Regardless of the challenges involved in managing student behavior, children should not be subjected to an environment that leaves them frightened, crying or feeling unsafe,” Smart said.

While she was told additional measures would be put in place to ensure the bus arrived on time, she said solutions haven’t materialized.