On Monday, a spokesperson for First Student, Frank McMahon, who is president of Advocacy Solutions, LLC a public relations firm out of Rhode Island, issued a statement on behalf of the bus company related to a bus incident involving the GHS freshmen football team.
On Friday the school district send a letter to families of the football team about the incident, which took place in the Norwalk area when the team was en route home from a game in West Haven on Thursday.
In their letter, Dr. Toni Jones, GHS principal Ralph Mayo, and GHS athletic director Peter Georgiou described the incident as disturbing.
“Due to heavy traffic and construction detours on Interstate 95 in the Norwalk area, the bus driver needed to reenter the highway, but did so in the wrong direction,” they wrote.
"We made it very clear to the bus company, First Student, that this is extremely unacceptable and demanded a full investigation, including a GPS review of video footage from the bus,” the letter said. “We have insisted that this bus driver not be on any of our long routes after school hours moving forward, pending the results of this investigation," they said in their letter.
The letter assured families that should the investigation deem the account that they received be accurate, an intensive re-training would be conducted.
Further they said they had asked the bus company to be proactive with additional driver training to ensure this kind of incident does not happen again.
Over the weekend numerous residents vented displeasure over the incident on GFP Facebook and Greenwich Connections. One parent wrote on Saturday, "My son was on this bus, and I am outraged. This driver should never be allowed to transport my child or anyone else’s again. They pose a serious danger to the community. We are incredibly fortunate that this negligence didn’t result in an even worse tragedy." Another poster saw some nuance. "...On Thursday, there were workmen on exit 2 northbound of the super 7. I watched as several cars entered the exit ramp to then have to back up to re-enter 7 because the workmen had not cordoned off the exit ramp. I just thought, how insanely dangerous that is and why was there no one to assist? You can’t make this stuff up." In his statement on Monday, Mr. McMahon from Advocacy Solutions said: "At First Student, the safety of the students we transport is always our first priority and a responsibility we take very seriously. We understand the concern this incident has caused and are thankful everyone on our bus at the time made it back to GHS safely. We are currently conducting a thorough internal review into what happened last Thursday. While we do, the driver has been removed from service." See also: Families Alerted to GHS Freshmen Football Team Bus Wrong-Way Incident