School bus shocker
'LITTLE MONSTER' | Driver, aide suspended after tape catches them taunting special needs kids
Cathy and Richard Bedard worried that something was wrong on the bus that took two of their three special-needs children to school.
So the Berwyn couple slipped a tape recorder in their 13-year-old daughter Tiffany's backpack to investigate.
(Keith Hale/Sun-Times)
They couldn't believe their ears when they pushed play. Cathy Bedard threw up.
"F - - - ing little monster," a man groused at 17-year-old Rick, who has Down syndrome. There were also jokes about tying kids to the roof of the bus, threats of breaking a child's finger and chuckling when a disabled student was escorted to another seat in order to "irritate" a classmate.
"You begin to wonder this cannot be an isolated incident. It scared me," Bedard, 49, said Tuesday.
The driver and a bus aide, Eugene Church, were suspended from driving students in the Morton School District 201, which hired First Student Inc. to transport eight disabled children to a special-needs school in Chicago.
But the district learned that the two men were allowed to work elsewhere following a six-week suspension after the Jan. 17 recording surfaced, so the district is reviewing its $1.5 million annual contract with First Student and will try to bid the contract out by the end of the school year, district spokesman Dan Proft said.
First Student spokeswoman Kimberly Mulcahy acknowledged the pair were reassigned, but said they were immediately taken off their current routes when the company received a copy of the recording last Thursday.
"We took swift action to suspend both the driver and the monitor. Following further investigation, we are now processing their termination," Mulcahy said in a statement.
Berwyn Police Chief William R. Kushner said the department is investigating whether any charges could be filed against the two men. Authorities have told the Bedards the recording may be inadmissible in court since it was made without the First Student workers' consent.
"At the moment all we were just thinking about how we needed proof to prove of our case . . . because they're [disabled children] unable to tell their parents what's happening to them," said Cathy Bedard. "We were just trying to protect our children."
Cathy Bedard said she plans to push for legislation mandating audio video cameras on school buses.
In the meantime, she vows to spend a bulk of her mornings and afternoons shuttling Richard and Tiffany to and from classes everyday. Her autistic middle child Alexandra, 14, attends regular school.
"I'm very frightened at the thought of putting them on a bus," she said.
