SOUTHWEST, Las Vegas — Parents of students at Tarkanian Middle School are asking for answers after a 30-second video recorded on a CCSD school bus captured a heated interaction between a bus driver and students.
The video, shared with KTNV by a concerned parent shows the driver repeatedly telling a student to move to the front of the bus.
“Get over here and permanently sit down in the front,” the driver can be heard saying.
The driver then says, “I’m not kidding with you,” followed moments later by, “Get over here now.”
Parents say students were upset following the incident.
“That video was horrible to even listen to and watch,” said Tanya Shepard, a concerned parent.
"That was shocking to me,” reiterated another parent, Amanda Fravel, who's daughter captured the incident on camera.
The video does not show what happened before the recording began, making it unclear what led up to the driver’s response.
Fravel’s daughter, Ava, recorded the video. She said the driver had told students she was going to turn the bus around.
“And so she had told us that she was going to turn around, so we all started freaking out and calling our parents ’cause we didn’t know,” Ava said.
Ava said the situation became increasingly loud, with students reacting to what was happening.
“The people in the back was like screaming their lungs out,” another student said.
That student’s mother told Channel 13 she understands the driver may have had a reason to intervene if students were creating a distraction.
“I mean, I think this bus driver had all the right, you know, if kids are yelling and there’s a bunch of, you know, they don’t have their hazard. It’s a hazardous,” she said.
Fravel said while she understands that drivers have to address student behavior, she believes there are procedures for handling those situations.
“I understand student misbehave, but she has processes, procedures that hopefully the school district has taught her,” Fravel said.
CCSD confirmed it is aware of the concerns and is investigating the incident, and said another driver has been assigned to the route for now. CCSD also said its safety protocols allow drivers to safely pull over to address behavior that creates a distraction and to call for assistance when necessary.
