A recent investigation conducted by Gannett New Jersey uncovered 35 school-bus drivers with criminal convictions who are driving children to school and home. Since the investigation, three of the drivers with criminal records have had their driving endorsements revoked, one of who was convicted of manslaughter in 1992 and the other two were women convicted of endangering the welfare of a child.
Even more shocking is the case of Parrish Jones, a man with prior drug convictions who was hired as a bus aide by a company in Monmouth County to drive middle-school students. Jones is now serving 10 years in prison for giving a 15 year old a near fatal dose of methadone while on a school bus in 2006.
The other 32 drivers with convictions have not had their licenses revoked because state officials say their prior offenses do not warrant the removal of their licenses. State-education officials are now trying to crack down on the background-check process to insure that nobody else slips through the cracks.
Gannett also discovered 148 convicts who received licenses to drive buses in the past, but those licenses have since expired. These drivers included private-bus companies and school districts that operate their own buses.
State education officials are pointing to a failure in the state’s fingerprinting system as the cause of so many people not being properly screened. In the case of Parrish Jones, the company he worked for never did a background check on him. After the department of education audited the company, they discovered other employees who did not receive background checks. As a result of this negligence, a boy almost died. Now, education officials are figuring out a penalty system of fines for companies who do not follow through with background checks.
Tags: background checks, bus drivers, finger prints, school bus drivers
