Superintendent recommends firing bus driver

Citing driver safety and procedural violations, Marietta’s school superintendent is recommending the firing of a bus driver involved in a chaotic scene captured by a student’s cellphone and posted on YouTube.

As of Friday, Shaentha Mitchell, 36, was suspended without pay following the Sept. 12 incident, according to a school system news release. The school board is scheduled to review the case at its Oct. 3 work session, school system spokesman Thomas Algarin said.

Rather than dropping students off at their stops along Roswell Road, Mitchell halted the bus in the East Lake Shopping Center to document the actions of a few students who were misbehaving, school officials have said.

Some students and parents said the bus was driving erratically and weaving.

“I didn’t give her the authority to take my son on a joy ride,” parent Susan Caudill said Monday. Caudill said she has calmed down since her son Andre called her from the bus, screaming that he was being kidnapped.

Cellphone footage, previously posted on YouTube, showed rowdy students standing, yelling and attempting to jump out of the emergency side exit as the bus came to a stop. Five students were suspended from riding the bus for the remainder of the school year.

“If [school system officials] are going to hold the children accountable, then the bus driver should be held accountable, too, and the people who hired her,” Caudill said.

Officials would not comment on the details of the violations that prompted Superintendent Emily Lembeck’s recommendation.

Mitchell had no comment Monday when contacted at her home.

In a news release, school officials said they reviewed footage from a camera aboard the bus, the student’s cellphone video and interviewed students and parents.

The release also noted that a previous incident involving Mitchell was taken into consideration.

In May, Mitchell was ticketed by the Georgia State Patrol for an unsafe lane change in Atlanta while driving the bus on a field trip. The lane change caused a multivehicle accident, but no injuries were reported, according to documents in Mitchell’s personnel file.

“I am concerned that you may not possess the experience necessary to drive under these conditions,” said Mike Cochran, director of transportation, in a letter to Mitchell after that incident. The letter was placed in Mitchell’s personnel file.

She was suspended for three days without pay and removed from driving students to field trips following the ticket, according to the file, which was obtained through the Georgia Open Records Act.

Mitchell was hired by Marietta City Schools in January 2007. She worked for a month for Cobb County Schools as a part-time driver in fall 2006.