Bus supervisor fired over flap with 7-year-old

GALESBURG, Mich. — A transportation supervisor was fired after being captured by a cell phone video pushing a 7-year-old student into a school bus window.

Ed Dollin, CEO of Auxilio Services, which this year began providing transportation for Galesburg-Augusta Community Schools, apologized for the supervisor’s handling of the Wednesday afternoon incident. “She should have never touched the child. .... It was a stressful situation, but she was trained to handle it and she didn't handle it properly," Dollin told the Kalamazoo Gazette.

Behavioral problems with the 7-year-old boy and others on the bus had reportedly been occurring for weeks, and the supervisor, an employee of Auxilio, was directed to ride the bus in the role of an aide to assess the situation.

Dollin told the Kalamazoo Gazette that on the Wednesday afternoon bus ride, the 7-year-old boy was "yelling and screaming and jumping around" and that when the female supervisor sat next to him, he pulled a sweatshirt over her head "with his whole body" and "[the supervisor] said it felt like he was trying to strangle her."

On Thursday, Galesburg-Augusta Community Schools released a statement on the incident.

“We take very seriously the obligation to provide a safe environment for our students,” the district said. “Information which we have received about a situation which occurred on a bus yesterday afternoon is of concern. As a result, a thorough investigation of these events has begun in an attempt to obtain all the facts. The school district will take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that our students have a safe environment.”

The district noted that the supervisor “is not an employee of Galesburg-Augusta Community Schools” and “will not be reassigned to our school district.”

Auxilio fired the supervisor on Thursday.

Dollin told the Battle Creek Enquirer that Auxilio employees are trained to never touch the students and that they would be retrained on how to handle difficult children.