Students say substitute bus driver abandoned 40 kids during bus ride home

CASTLE ROCK, Colo. — Students at Clear Sky Elementary School in Castle Rock said their bus driver abandoned them on their way home, forcing students off the bus at East Wolfensberger Road and Auburn Drive. 

Students said their bus driver on Monday first wouldn’t leave the parking lot until the kids stopped talking. Then, what was supposed to be their trip home, got even worse. Now, parents are demanding answers and video evidence of what happened on the bus leading up to the incident.

“We got on the bus and there was a substitute,” said Caitlyn Zavadil, a 10-year-old student at Clear Sky. “He wouldn’t let us leave the school until we stopped talking.”

The students said they left school later than they normally do.

“He finally left, and he was skipping all the kids stops, and when I say all the kids, I mean all the kids,” Zavadil said. “And we felt like when he was driving and missing our stops, like we were getting kidnapped.”

The kids said their bus driver ended up two miles away from the school at the corner of Wolfensberger and Auburn, with a bus full of about 40 kids.

“He stopped like right here at this intersection like about right here and said everybody get off my bus,” Zavadil said. “And then everybody was like stressing like crying.”

They said it was around 5 p.m. that evening, getting dark and cold.

“And then we forgot our jackets on the bus out of stress, yeah, we were shivering,” the sisters agreed.

“I felt like I was never going to get home,” said Keira Schmidt.

“Me and my little sister, we live like two miles away from here, so we had like no idea what to do,” Zavadil said.

A stranger offered the girls a ride and helped the girls call their mom, Ashley Stark.

“I was absolutely petrified, and for a stranger to call me and tell me that she had my children in the car and they were crying and screaming, and bright red and frozen,” Stark said.  

She said it’s not something she can just let go. “This wasn’t an honest mistake or a slip-up, there were a lot of ways the driver could have handled this,” Stark said.

Parents said they won’t stop asking questions until they get to the bottom of what happened on the bus ride. 

“It’s just unfathomable and I think there needs to be some accountability on the Department of Transportation,” Stark said.

“It was super. super scary,” Schmidt said.

The Douglas County School District released a statement:

“We are in contact with the families of the 40 students who were dropped off yesterday at a different area than their regular bus stop after school. This is incredibly concerning as the safety of our students is always our priority. We will continue to partner with the Castle Rock Police Department (CRPD) on this matter and the bus driver is currently on leave while we conduct our own internal investigation.”