A Calgary school bus driver who got lost while taking students home on the first day of school has been removed from the route, the bus company says.
The parents of several students at Brentwood Elementary School made calls earlier this week to SOUTHLAND Transportation, complaining after their children's bus ride took four times as long as expected.
They told officials it was because the driver had gotten lost along the way and refused to call for help.
By the time the school bus arrived, nearly two hours later, a number of the children were in tears.
SOUTHLAND Transportation spokesperson Pamela Deadmarsh confirmed to CTV News on Thursday the driver involved in the incident has been removed from the route.
She says all of their drivers must pass a nationally accredited training program before they are allowed to drive.
"Once a driver completes our training program they select a route and complete a dry run to ensure they are familiar with the directions and identify any issues," she wrote in an email.
The company is still in the process of investigating the matter.
CTV News has also learned there was a second issue involving bussing at the same school later on in the week.
The Calgary Board of Education says Brentwood Elementary's Bus J was delayed by over an hour on Wednesday.
Parents of affected students were notified as soon as the CBE became aware of the late arrival.
SOUTHLAND tells CTV News the bus was late because of an issue involving a student on the bus whose parent or guardian had not arrived to pick them up.
"Our protocol in instances such as this is for the driver to alert dispatch and dispatch attempts to reach the parent or guardian to arrange pick-up accordingly," Deadmarsh says. "In this situation full protocol was not followed as dispatch was unable to reach the parent and the bus waited with the student onboard until the parent arrived."
She says the bus driver should have continued its route with the student still onboard while dispatch attempted to contact the student's parent or guardian.
SOUTHLAND has apologized for the delay because of the isolated incident and does not anticipate any further problems.
