Bus Driver’s Suspension Terms Revealed : Schools: Woman who ejected 7-year-old because he was carrying a box of lizards won’t be allowed to transport children to and from the campus while the ousted boy is a student there.

A school bus driver who kicked a 7-year-old student off her bus more than a mile from school because he was carrying a box of lizards will never drive for Gates Elementary School as long as that boy is there, school officials said Monday.

Peter A. Hartman, Saddleback Valley Unified School District superintendent, said the driver has been suspended, probably through the end of the school year next week. If the driver is not fired after the district completes its investigation, she will not be allowed to drive students to or from the El Toro school as long as Tristan Martin, the ejected second-grader, is a student there.

The district has refused to release the driver’s name.

Hartman said the driver and Mayflower Contract Services, which employs the driver and operates the district’s buses, have agreed to the terms of the suspension.

Tristan’s parents, who have been calling for the driver’s dismissal, said they are happy with the compromise.

“As far as we are concerned, this is fine,” said Tracy Martin, Tristan’s father. “All along, all we have wanted was that we be assured that Tristan would never have to confront her again.”

Leslie Ball, the boy’s mother who is a trial lawyer, has said she wanted to avoid suing the district because she did not want to force Tristan to relive the experience in court.

Tristan was riding to the school from his Laguna Hills home last Tuesday morning, carrying three small lizards in a secure plastic cage so that he could display them during show-and-tell.

About 5 miles into his 7-mile journey, Tristan was confronted by the driver, who told him to put the lizards and the cage on the side of the road or get off the bus. He has insisted that he was not being disruptive and that he never took the lizards out of their cage.

Tristan, near tears, chose to walk to school and was accompanied by two girls, a fifth-grader and a sixth-grader, who were asked by the driver to escort him to school. The threesome arrived safely about 30 minutes later after crossing at least one major street and cutting through a park.