Forgotten Student Left on School Bus the Entire School Day Boy, 7, Left on a School Bus All Day

NBC Miami ^ | Tue, Jan 25, 2011 | TODD WRIGHT

[nickcarraway]

The wheels on the school bus go 'round and 'round, but eventually students are supposed to get off.

Not so for one South Florida boy, who was trapped on his school bus the entire day after the bus driver forgot to check and see if all of the students got off for school. Dylan Gottshall was found Monday on his school bus around 1 p.m., hours after he was supposed to get off and go to class at Parkway Elementary School in Port St. Lucie, TCPalm.com reports. The 7-year-old first grader was picked up at his bus stop around 7:30 a.m., but fell asleep on the bus by the time it arrived at school. He didn't wake up as all the other kids got off the bus and so the bus driver drove the bus back to the bus depot.

And so Dylan was trapped on the bus for hours with no way to get off, his father said.

"I was in shock and I was very angry that my child was left on a bus," Sam Gottshall said. "We all know what happens to kids who get locked in vehicles on hot days and everything and I was thankful it wasn't a hot day." School district officials said they were checking into the incident to see how a student could be stuck on a bus the entire day without anyone noticing.

So what do you do on a school bus all day? Dylan decided he'd get a math lesson in.

He counted all the open windows and all the closed windows. And then he counted them again, his father said. "He was very scared an

[Immerito]

You are contrasting apples and oranges. Comparable cases would be other children left on buses, not children left in cars.

The common factor in both cases is criminal negligence of the adult responsible.

The bus driver’s failure to check the bus before parking it for the day is responsible for this incident.

[dfwgator]

Here's an artist's rendering of the bus driver responsible

[Immerito]

You are assuming he did not attempt to do so.

It sounds like you were raised by parents who were concerned that you learn personal responsibility, initiative, and independence. Not all kids are so fortunate.

Young elementary school boys especially are often chastised for doing things that young elementary school boys do simply because they do not behave as well as the girls in their class. When a young boy constantly hears “Don’t touch this; don’t try that.” NEEDLESSLY from his teachers and other school authority figures, it re-enforces the lesson that climbing, exploring and figuring out how things work through trial and error are Bad Ideas.

It does not appear that you were in his place; you appear to have been better prepared for life and the world at his age than he seems to have been by his parents and authority figures.

The kid’s failures can be solved by education and discipline.

The bus driver’s failures are the more severe and should be dealt with more harshly.

[ReignOfError]

You are contrasting apples and oranges. Comparable cases would be other children left on buses, not children left in cars.

Why are the two not comparable? Both involve a child left behind due to adult negligence.

The bus driver’s failure to check the bus before parking it for the day is responsible for this incident.

Of course. But this is one incident out of millions of kids who ride school buses every day, and this one incident does not justify any broad conclusions about "the incompetency of government officials," specifically school bus drivers, many of whom are parents working part-time for a little extra income.

[lastchance]

Again you are forgetting that I know that this yard is a busy depot and maintenace yard with many workers and with constant in and out traffic. So it is more than just an assumption that he did not try to attract attention.

I agree with the rest.

[Immerito]

Any adult responsible for children in a professional setting has it hammered into their heads that above all else they need to make sure that they have turned over all children in their care to another responsible adult (a teacher or parent, etc) before tending to other duties.

Since the government workers who run our schools like to flaunt their professionalism, they need to do what real professionals do when they have a problem-—make changes to prevent its reoccurrence.

This is not the first time that a child has been found on a school bus, nor will it be the last.

In Illinois, the school bus driver would have violated the law. I am not aware of any equivalent or similar laws in Florida, and personally would much rather that bus drivers and other people responsible for school children would use common sense rather than waiting for something to become law.

http://stnonline.com/resources/safety/related-articles/1535-new-illinois-law-requires-school-bus-drivers-to-check-for-sleeping-students-use-two-way-radios

[Immerito]

I acknowledged this above; however, even in a busy depot and maintenance yard, there are periods in the day when the activity around one particular bus may be nonexistent. If a child does not try for more than a few minutes to garner attention (and so many kids have such short attention spans that they will assume that calling for help/banging on windows/doing X is fruitless because it didn’t work within a few minutes), then there is less chance of that child being discovered.

Unless this story is updated, we don’t know how much, or for how long (if at all) this kid tried to attract attention before he gave up to find ways to entertain himself. It probably did not occur to this kid, until the hours stretched by, that any adult would be away for more than a few minutes.