By James Lomuscio
The Newtown elementary school shooting that left 20 students and six teachers and staff dead has reopened fears for Westport’s Coleytown Middle School (CMS) parents whose children were threatened in October by a school bus driver who has since been fired and arrested.
The parents voiced their concerns at tonight’s Board of Education meeting where schools Superintendent Elliott Landon reaffirmed the school system’s transportation policies and procedures.
“I also have an eighth grader who was on Bus 16, and in light of Friday’s event my concerns turned to the to the mental state of the driver,” said Trish Boyle. “He clearly was kind of delusional, paranoid and acting oddly.”
Boyle said she wanted to know what steps were being taken to monitor the driver, since she and other parents worry about retaliation.
“The guy knows where our kids live,” said Boyle.
On Nov. 20, Danile Florio, 44, of Norwalk turned himself into Westport police on charges of threatening, risk of injury to a minor and breach of peace charges.
The arrest warrant was predicated on numerous complaints from middle school parents and children “reporting offensive and irrational behavior from their school bus driver … allegedly making sexual comments and threatening the riders,” the police report states.
According to one parent, Florio had used profanity, talked about his sex life and told 11- to 13-year-old students aboard Bus 16 heading to CMS, Oct. 18, and told them hat they should be having sex, too.
After some of the children upon arriving at school complained about the bus driver to CMS Principal Kris Szabo, Szabo made two phone calls to Sandra Evangelista, transportation coordinator, who in turn called the Dattco Bus Company.
However, Dattco did not take Florio off the afternoon run, and he was reportedly furious with the students.
“He used the F-word and made comments about how he could wipe up the floor with them,” CMS parent Jarrett Liotta said shortly after the incident. He added that the sixth through eighth grade boys and girls “were traumatized” to the point that some were getting off at earlier stops.
Tonight, Liotta again criticized Evangalista for not doing more than making one call to Dattco, and he asked the school board and Landon to fire her.
“It’s an emotional time for everybody, but wow, look at what we faced and look at what we are faced with the Newtown situation,” Liotta said.
Roberta Farrell, whose son is in the sixth grade at CMS, said the the news of Newtown shoooting brought back fears of what could have happened.
“We’re all lucky that he was not armed, and that he did not harm any of the children,” she said.
CMS parent Karen Klein told the school board she was unsatisfied with Dattco’s explanation that there was no video of the incident available, especially since the town’s school buses are supposed to be under video surveillance. She said she was told it was not working that day.
“I am fully satisfied that everyone on the Westport Public Schools staff who played a role in this matter acted appropriately with reasonable procedures for looking into bus concerns,” Landon said in a letter to the board.
Landon also stated that future complaints will be communicated via “telephone and in writing to the Dattco bus terminal manager with specific instructions to immediately remove the driver from service” until the school system’s transportation coordinator completes an investigation.
In his letter, in response to a request from the school board, Landon outlined Dattco’s procedures for its employees including: state and federal fingerprint checks; criminal checks in and out of state for past criminal and driving convictions; national sex offenders website checks; past employer references; and drug an alcohol screenings.
“Prior to the morning of Oct. 18, not a single complaint about the driver assigned to this CMS bus was registered by any parent or any student,” said Landon.
CMS parent Christine Kurpiel said she was pleased that the school board decided to look into the matter, though she is not completely satisfied. Kurpeil said she would like to see one more administrator beyond Evangelista involved in monitoring bus driver complaints.
“I’m happy the board was asking questions, but a lot more has to be done,” she said. “I would like to see one more person involved.”
