SAN ANTONIO -- Julia Valerio said she is still in shock after seeing a school bus driver texting while carting around a load of students.
Valerio said she saw it Friday morning while on her way to work. At first she wasn’t sure why a Northside Independent School District bus was driving erratically.
“It was just swaying back and forth and I thought they either lost control of the bus, I don’t know, but it looked pretty bad,” she said.
Once she pulled up next to the bus, Valerio said she realized what was really going on.
“You could see through the door of the bus and he has the phone by his knees and he’s looking down and he’s texting,” Valerio said.
NISD officials confirmed on Tuesday that the driver was indeed texting.
“As it turns out the driver was texting behind the wheel of a bus,” said NISD spokesman Pascual Gonzalez. “That’s a very serious infraction.”
Gonzalez said video from inside the bus is what helped show administration that the driver was not only breaking NISD policy but also breaking the law. It’s illegal to text while behind the wheel in San Antonio. Gonzalez said the district has yet to review the entire video, but what they have seen shows the driver texting while stopped at an intersection, not while moving.
“The piece that we noted showed the driver was stopped at a stop light,” Gonzalez said. “That does not excuse him from texting at the wheel.”
The district also confirmed students were on the bus while the driver was texting, but officials want to assure parents they’re going to try and make sure another incident like this doesn’t happen again.
“The parents have every right to be upset," Gonzalez said. "It’s very distressing to the school district to have an employee driving a bus and texting, so it’s not going to be accepted."
The driver was placed on administrative leave Tuesday. Gonzalez said punishment could range from counseling to termination pending the outcome of the investigation.
