Santa Clarita Bus Inquiry : Schools Can’t Verify Drug, Safety Charges

Two Santa Clarita school districts confirmed Tuesday that a school bus driver was fired in June for having sex with a freshman girl, but said there is no evidence to support recently published allegations that drivers used and sold drugs on the job.

Clyde Smyth, superintendent of the William S. Hart Union School District, and J. Michael McGrath, Newhall School District superintendent, also denied charges that school buses were unsafe.

The superintendents, in a 75-minute press conference, said the districts investigated allegations that male bus drivers made sexual advances toward female and male students but found no evidence to prove the accusations.

Smyth and McGrath were joined by other school officials and two vice presidents from Laidlaw Transit, which is paid $925,000 a year to provide bus service for 3,600 students in the two districts. William Johnson, a Laidlaw vice president, said bus drivers were disturbed by the allegations published in Sunday’s Newhall Signal and voted unanimously to voluntarily take drug tests.

About 50 drivers began taking the tests Tuesday at Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital. Johnson said the company would make the test results public.

James Bown, director of support services for the Hart district, said the June incident involved a 19-year-old bus driver who wrote sexually suggestive notes to an eighth-grade student attending Sierra Vista Junior High School. A counselor learned of the notes after the girl showed them at school, he said.

The driver later admitted to school officials that he had sexual intercourse several times with another student, a 14-year-old freshman at Canyon High School, Bown said. The driver was fired, Bown added.

Bown said the district and Laidlaw have agreed to hire only drivers over 21 years of age.

“We had a driver that had a problem,” Smyth said. “We’re not going to cover that up.”

But, Smyth said, the district found no evidence to support allegations that another driver had made sexual advances toward male and female students.

Gary Smith, transportation coordinator for the two districts, said school officials and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department also were unable to prove allegations that a driver had sold drugs to children last November.

Neither Smyth nor Johnson would speculate about the source of the allegations, but both suggested that disgruntled former employees may be behind the charges.

Smyth said he and McGrath also asked the California Highway Patrol to inspect the entire fleet of about 50 buses after the Signal reported that Laidlaw ignored safety regulations. Smyth said the CHP conducted a routine inspection of 25% of the district’s buses last Thursday and found that all the buses were safe.

Smyth said the schools were willing to investigate any accusations of misconduct by district employees but warned that complaints must be well-founded.

“I don’t want a rumor mill, for crying out loud,” he said.