A driver and an aide could lose their jobs after a sleeping preschooler was left alone on a bus.
Officials with the Ferrysburg Head Start Center are expected to decide Tuesday on discipline, which could include dismissal of the workers, The Muskegon Chronicle reported Sunday.
The Thursday incident involving a 4-year-old girl was at least the third involving young children left on Head Start buses in Kent and Ottawa Counties.
In the Ferrysburg case, the child was discovered after a teacher in a nearby building noticed the girl, still wearing her seat belt. The child had been on the bus for about two hours.
Kim Hamberg, executive director of Child Development Services of Ottawa County, declined to identify the employees but said they were promptly suspended.
“It is a situation we feel is inexcusable,” said Hamberg, whose department operates federally funded Head Start preschool programs for 3- to 5-year-olds throughout Ottawa County.
Another driver and an aide were fired three years ago for leaving a child asleep on their bus, Hamberg said.
On Nov. 12, a Kent City woman was fired after a 3-year-old was found asleep on a bus she had parked outside Sparta’s Head Start Center. Kent County Head Start officials said they fired the woman because it was her second such offense since October.
The Ferrysburg aide was to have checked the children on and off the bus, and the driver was supposed to walk to the end of the bus and untangle and lay out all seat belts on the 22-passenger bus, Hamberg said.
