A suburban school bus driver taking elementary school children home for the day got lost Thursday afternoon, with parents tracking the bus noticing it had been going in circles for 45 minutes before police were able to intervene.
A statement from Oswego School District 308 said the entire delay lasted 90 minutes. The bus, carrying elementary school students, had a substitute driver who was unfamiliar with the route, the district said.
According to the statement, a parent tracking the bus via GPS initially noticed it circling an area and contacted police. At the time, the bus was pulled over and the driver was receiving directions and guidance from the transportation dispatch office, the district said.
Police arrived and the district dispatched transportation staff to meet the bus. A parent posted the bus’s location on social media, the statement said, with some parents soon arriving at the scene.
Police and transportation staff then began checking IDs with student records, with some students released to parents while the bus was pulled over.
“This caused a significant delay in the bus continuing its route,” the district said. The bus then continued its route with two stops remaining.
“The bus had a 45-minute delay when it pulled over, then the parents started to arrive,” the district said. “Once there was a large number of parents there with police and our staff it took time to verify identities to release students to parents before the route could continue. That was roughly 35 minutes. Once the route continued they completed in 10 minutes.”
The statement went on to say the district uses contracted transportation providers to cover a portion of its routes and that it “continues to face transportation challenges as funding reduces year over year as costs exponentially increase.“
According to the Illinois State Board of Education’s school bus training manual, drivers are prohibited from using phones for GPS navigation, even if the phones are mounted.
