NAMPA, Idaho — Layken Standing's six-year-old student is a bus rider in the Nampa School District. Earlier this month, she got emails saying her student's bus was delayed by about 30 minutes. As she was getting him from the bus, something seemed off.
"Like something wasn't right. And so then I'd go inside and I'd pull up my camera footage. And that's when I was like, oh, that's what was different. The no lights, the no stop sign, and then the safety arm bar wasn't out," Standing said.
Standing called the newly contracted First Student Inc. the next day. She says what resulted was phone-tag and frustration.
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"I was extremely frustrated and concerned because, you know, I felt like the safety of my son wasn't important. And no matter how many people I called and how many people I said, look, this was a danger," she said. "And no one's taking me seriously, and he's still riding this bus."
I looked into Idaho law and found that school bus drivers must extend their stop sign "whenever the bus is stopped on the highway for the purpose of receiving or discharging school children."
I confirmed with a local state representative, Brett Crane that "highways" means all roads intended for public use. At every bus stop a driver makes, the stop sign must be used.
I tried contacting First Student multiple times through phone calls and email over the course of several days. Monday morning I received a response.
"Thank you for contacting us. The issue has been addressed. We appreciate the student's mom bringing it to our attention," the email read.
"You know, because after everything we've gone through and all of the concerns that I've brought to light, I just felt like [that email] was so cold and they didn't care," Standing said.
By the end of that week, Standing's first-grader had a new driver.
"[First Student] said, I guarantee they will not be driving students around. They will not be driving any buses," Standing added.
The Nampa School District provided methis linkfor people to write to the District's Transportation Department.