Muskoday First Nation responds to school bus incident
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The Muskoday First Nation has brought forward three recommendations on protocol it hopes will prevent the sort of serious incident which took place last month when a little boy was left unnoticed on the school bus. However, the boy’s family says they’re frustrated by the total lack of communication from officials following the incident.
On Feb.13, five-year-old Kalen Crain fell asleep on the bus. He was supposed to be dropped off a short distance away at the day care but the driver didn’t notice him when she took the vehicle back to her home. Kalen woke up a few hours later alone and in some distress. Fortunately, he had the presence of mind to honk the horn, which alerted the driver. The weather was very cold and his mother said she was very concerned about his welfare and how he may have walked off alone in the rural area.
Councillor Herman Crain says band officials, the independent education authority and the local school, came together recently and came up with three key recommendations.
He told paNOW an education assistant (EA) must be on the bus carrying pre-K and kindergarten students; the day care must not assume a child who does not arrive has been picked up by someone else; and the driver of the bus must keep a log detailing when the kids were picked up and dropped off.
Crain said the policy of having an EA on the bus was already in place but in this instance that did not happen. He could not say why.
“In this particular incident there were a couple of things that broke down that day,” Crain said. “I don’t think the responsibility falls solely on the bus driver. The day care staff could have done things differently and not assume Kalen was picked up by someone else.”
paNOW contacted the boy’s mother Natasha Crain earlier this week who told us neither she, nor Kalen‘s two grandmas, had received any reply to their complaints and concerns sent the day after the incident.
Crain said she was frustrated by that, especially given it was a very serious incident and because she said she’d heard from another mother that a similar situation happened in December.
“The situation doesn’t seem to be affecting Kalen as much as me; I was scared to let him go the day after,” she said. “Drivers aren’t doing their checks.,“
Councillor Crain couldn’t explain why the education authority, which has the mandate to deal with such matters, had not contacted the boy’s mom by earlier this week although he said they may have done so since.
After numerous attempts paNOW did manage to connect with Beverly Crain with the Muskoday education authority but she would not give any comment.
“The education authority has had the mandate since 2004 to deal with everything, just to keep the politics out of the administration of the school and everything that goes with it,” Herman Crain said. “The education authority has to look at their responsibilities and re-examine and make certain [that] communication is very important.”
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glenn.hicks@jpbg.ca
On Twitter:@princealbertnow
