"Sit down, Waldo!"
Posted on 08/27/2026 9:33:41 AM PDT by Red Badger
A California school bus ride home turned into a scene out of a third-world country Monday when furious parents smashed their way onto a Calaveras Unified bus and children started climbing out the windows because the driver refused to let the kids off.
The wild scene unfolded along Highway 49 near Russell Road in Calaveras County after students were held on the stopped bus for about an hour.
According to KCRA 3, the trouble began when a student reportedly tried to climb out a window before the bus had come to a stop.
The driver then pulled over, contacted law enforcement, and ordered the students to remain seated and roll up the windows. The children were reportedly kept aboard for nearly an hour while they waited for deputies to arrive.
Video recorded by a student shows the scene rapidly spiraling out of control as students shouted, parents gathered outside, children squeezed through open windows, and at least one adult climbed into the bus.
One 12-year-old student told KCRA that the children had been loud and excited to get off the bus before the situation escalated.
Nichole Wellington said her frightened son called her from inside the bus. She rushed to the scene and demanded that the driver release him.
“Dude, open the door. Let me have my kid,” Wellington recalled telling the driver. According to Wellington, he refused.
Wellington then instructed her son to climb out through a window.
She argued that the chaos could have been avoided if the driver had simply released children to the parents who had arrived to collect them.
A bus full of captive Children, and it takes an hour after they were called for Law Enforcement Officers to arrive????
Gently down the stream..."
Yes, that's the story here.
When you watch the video to the end, you learn the kids were being rambunctious and the driver was trying to protect himself from liability.
The kids were misbehaving and the parents sided with their own little jerks ('my little Johnny is an angel') instead of siding with the driver trying to maintain order.
And yes, the police shouldn't have taken an hour to show up.
Now change the scenario to being a driver in an urban school district like Baltimore, New York or Detroit
Student punches DRIVER in the face. What does he do?
Who is the blonde climbing in the window? Wowsers!
I had something similar happen as a school bus driver.
They are trained to NEVER touch a child but to return back to the school and let authorities handle it.
Mine involved a young girl being terrorized by boys.
Took the boys back to the school.
You both beat me to it.
But I’m kind of surprised that many more commenters above haven’t made included comments too.
LOL!
Big red flag when kids start opening and hanging out of windows; as a driver you just don't allow that, period.
There are plenty of stories about kids getting decapitated from hanging out of the bus window.
If kids get too crazy the driver has discretion to pull over and call cops; although I never did....after all, kids are just kids.
I did hear stories about other drivers that couldn't handle the wild kids and would stop the bus and call the cops.
I always thought that was bizarre...if you can't handle a bunch of screaming kids then you shouldn't be driving a school bus.
> Now change the scenario to being a driver in an urban school district like Baltimore, New York or Detroit <
I actually worked for many years in such a school district. As a teacher, not as a bus driver.
And you’re right about the casual violence.
Here’s something else I witnessed quite often.
Students would exit the school bus, then cross the street to get to the school. That was safe enough, as the bus’ warning lights were flashing.
But wait. The students would sometimes stop in the middle of the street, just for the hell of it. They would block all traffic, the bus included. And move only when they felt like it.
Sure, the police were called. Sometimes they would respond, and tell the kids to move along. Sometimes the cops were too busy to respond.
Fun times for me.
Not.
Correct. We are unravelling. Tensions on the social fabric are too great. Here, for example, and I will again assert without really knowing, some spoiled children put themselves and others in danger, and in so doing provoked the whole situation. The bus driver is responsible for the safety of each and every kid on that bus. I can thus understand his attempt to secure the situation until help arrived (I don’t consider hysterical parents ‘help’). Had those children been raised properly and not exposed to aberrant conduct on social media for years, this never would have happened. But that’s not our world anymore, and it will only get worse.
Also, and I hate to share this idea but will, anyway: it might have been a good idea to have reported a medical emergency in addition to the call for police help. “I’ve secured the bus as best I can, but I’m over 50 and am having severe chest pains. I think I might be having a heart attack.” A possible felony if untrue, but there would have been capable, uniformed people there in a matter of a few minutes, which might possibly have helped in some way. This is the world we live in, unfortunately.
The School Mascot is the Jumpin’ Bean.
He should have simply driven the kids home. That was his job. Not stopping and trapping children in a bus for an hour. A kid trys to climb out a window (he claims) and they call police.
Why would he call police? Notify the parent and the school.
"Sit down, Waldo!"
Literally kidnapping
At the rural school were I used to teach, people picking up kids after school are now ‘checked in’ before getting to the pick up point and a list is checked to make sure they are authorized to have access to the kids.
Kids being rowdy on a school bus is an old story, but apparently it has now become nearly unbearable. Even kindergarten kids feel free to both ignore and defy adults who are supposed to be in authority and what’s worse, their parents support them.
That is correct.
Driver was just following policy.
Its very easy to get in serious trouble by NOT following policy.
Actually NOT...
Many parents have ZERO idea how the law actually works once you put your kid on the bus or drop them off at the school door..
Doesn’t play to the Democrats play book regarding kids.
From what I can gather, the kids on the bus were getting ‘rowdy’, and at least one tried to climb out of a window while the bus was in motion as it was coming to a stop. In my imagination, the driver was going to stop the bus to attempt to get control of an unsafe situation. Continuing to drive safely with dangerous chaos going on in the back would have been itself unwise and unsafe.
And I agree with you in principle. But the spoiled children who put everyone in danger are the ones to blame here, along with their parents. He had to make the best of an impossible situation that in a sane world never would even happened. The whole thing, including what he did, is messed up. Again, we have only bits and pieces of this story. But I’ll go out on a limb here (again), and bet that the rather fit looking mother who broke the door and climbed in through the window has a police record involving domestic disputes, disorderly conduct, etc.
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