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Schools

Girl, 9, says driver slapped her on bus

By Times Staff
Published January 10, 2006

LARGO - Pinellas County school officials are investigating a 9-year-old's report that her bus driver slapped her on the way home from school last week.

Allison Evans, the child's mother, says the incident happened Thursday a few miles from the family's home. Her daughter, Alexis, is a third-grader at Southern Oak Elementary School in Largo.

In an e-mail to School Board members, district spokesman Ron Stone said the driver had to "pull the bus off the road to get students under control." At some point, the driver "moved to the rear of the bus to deal with students."

The driver is accused of "slapping the girl's hand away" as she pointed to another student, Stone said.

The bus driver has been pulled from the route and is working at one of the transportation department's bus compounds pending a review, said school spokesman Sterling Ivey.

"At this point, it really is very early in the process," Ivey said. "There was a videotape and they'll be reviewing that as part of the investigation."

The allegation comes less than a month after a 5-year-old accused his bus driver of putting duct tape over his mouth. The Pinellas County Sheriff's Office closed a criminal investigation when neither the students on the bus nor the aide could corroborate the Dunedin Elementary School kindergartener's story. There was no videotaped evidence. On Nov. 11, a St. Petersburg police officer handcuffed a 13-year-old Clearwater girl aboard a bus. A tape of that incident showed the officer boarding the bus after a student threw a hard object, thought to be a golf ball, out a window.

[Last modified January 10, 2006, 08:52:33]