School bus driver let the students drive, Indiana police say. It was caught on video
While an Indiana school bus driver let three students drive the bus, other student riders started to take video, ABC News reported.
The three students — ages 11, 13 and 17 — each got to drive for “short distances” in rural Valparaiso, Indiana, according to ABC. That’s about 50 miles southeast of Chicago.
In one of the videos, the bus driver is heard teaching a student how to drive the bus on Sept. 20, WLS reported.
“OK, first, we gotta do is put your foot on the brake,” the driver said in the video obtained by WLS. “There you go.”
In the video, a female child can be seen in the driver’s seat with both hands on the wheel while the driver sits in a seat behind her.
“It’s all good, it’s all good,” the driver said. “I’m letting her stop at Michael’s stop.”
When students ask if they can drive every day, the driver said she would let them know, the video shows.
In another video posted to Twitter, the driver can be heard saying, “don’t tell no other adults,” CBS Chicago reported.
The driver in the videos has since been identified as 27-year-old Joandrea McAtee, ABC reported.
She was fired and arrested after a parent complained to a Porter Township school district resource officer about the incident, according to the Associated Press.
“The students and parents that immediately came forward with this information should be commended for doing exactly what we teach, which is see something, say something,” Sheriff David Reynolds said in a statement to the Post-Tribune. “An investigation was immediately started and no one was injured or harmed.”
When McAtee went to pick up her last check at the bus barn the day after she let students drive, deputies were waiting to arrest her, the Post-Tribune reported. She has been charged with felony neglect of a dependent, the newspaper reported.
“The Porter Township School Corporation is angered and disappointed in the actions of this driver,” Stacey Schmidt, Porter Township School Corporation superintendent, said in an email to the Times of Northwest Indiana. “The safety of our students is a top priority.”