Santa Clarita Bus Drivers Accused : Schools Investigating Sex, Drug Claims

Officials in two Santa Clarita school districts are investigating allegations that bus drivers made sexual advances toward students, used drugs on the job and, in one instance, threatened to kill students.

Clyde Smyth, superintendent of the William S. Hart Union School District, said Monday that he and officials from the Newhall School District would release a report, probably today, addressing each of the allegations made Sunday in a front-page story in the Newhall Signal. Smyth declined to comment on the allegations Monday.

“We are in the process of going through each and every one of them to determine the degree of validity, if any,” Smyth said of the allegations.

“My interest, obviously, is to ensure safety,” he said.

Canadian Company

The superintendent said that some of the allegations might be part of a vendetta waged by disgruntled former employees of Laidlaw Transit, a Canadian bus company paid more than $1 million a year to provide bus service for the Hart and Newhall districts. However, Smyth reserved final judgment on the allegations.

If disciplinary or corrective action is necessary, “we’ll take it and take it immediately,” he said.

Meanwhile, Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sepulveda), chairman of the Assembly Transportation Committee, said his staff would begin investigating the allegations. In recent years, Katz has sponsored bills, some of which were signed into law, aimed at upgrading the performance of school bus drivers.

Laidlaw officials met all day with representatives of the Newhall and Hart districts and could not be reached for comment. The bus drivers are employees of Laidlaw Transit, not the school districts.

The Signal reported that last week a bus driver taking students home from Old Orchard Elementary School ordered the children to roll up the windows, turned on the heater and then threatened to kill them.

The Signal also said a 19-year-old bus driver was fired in the summer after school officials learned he had sexual relations several times with a 14-year-old freshman at Canyon High School. The driver also allegedly wrote sexually suggestive notes to an eighth-grade student attending Sierra Vista Junior High School, the paper said.

The Signal said the company disciplined another bus driver for making suggestive remarks to another Sierra Vista student.

In another incident, the paper said, a Laidlaw supervisor was dismissed after he covered up an accident in which a bus driver was allegedly using drugs.

The paper said bus drivers had been accused of selling drugs to students, but that school and Laidlaw officials were unable to confirm or disprove the allegations.