PRICE — A bus driver for Carbon County School District has been fired after crashing the bus into a concrete barricade near a canal when elementary school students were aboard, school officials said.
District spokesman Richard Shaw said the driver broke district protocol by continuing to drive and pick up students before dropping them off at school.
He declined to say how many children were on the bus that was hauling students from Castle Heights Elementary in Price.
Carbon bus drivers are trained to stop, notify transportation officers, check on students and wait for help after an accident, Shaw said.
"Student safety is Carbon School District's top priority," he added.
By the time other employees learned about the crash, the driver already had brought students to school, Shaw said.
He declined to provide further details. Shaw said the district's superintendent was out of town and could not be made available.
Brent Innes, a parent of a student in the district who was not on the bus, provided video taken from a car behind a bus driving slowly for three minutes with a dented rear right side. The back wheels are shown dragging toward the same side of the vehicle at an angle. Innis said the recording was taken about 8 a.m., just before the start of school.
As the damaged bus drove slowly through what appeared to be a residential neighborhood, Innes recalled thinking, "You have a bus full of kids and you're driving sideways," he said. "That isn't acceptable anywhere."
Still, Innes said he believes such an incident is unlikely to happen again. The firing of the driver "brings me comfort as a parent," he said.