One would think that the person driving your kids to school puts their safety at the top of their list.  Seems one employee of the Rockingham County Schools put her personal interest before the children’s need.

A full-time employee working as a bus driver for Draper Elementary School, in North Carolina, was removed from her duties after an anonymous tip informed the school board that the woman driver was seen texting while driving on September 21.

The allegation was taken seriously by the district’s safety director, Rodney Shotwell.

“We began to look into the situation immediately,” he said.

After reviewing the safety camera footage from the bus, it was confirmed that the woman driver exchanged text messages on three separate occasions on September 21.  On the first incident, she was driving at 34 miles per hour, but there were no children on the bus.  The second time she was seen texting while driving, he average speed was 21 miles per hour and there were children passengers in the bus.  In the last footage, she is seen texting while driving at 32 miles per hour with one student passenger.

Shotwell said that in addition to state law which forbids using a cell phone while operating a bus, the school district also has a zero-tolerance policy.

The woman resigned from her bus driving duties two days after the event, on September 23, although she still works part time in the cafeteria. 

Source: GoDanRiver, November 11, 2010

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