Danielle Vogelsang is steaming about the snow-day school bus policies for Frazier Park School that left her uncertain where her 8-year-old was on the morning of February 9.

School had closed early because of a snowstorm and she did not receive a call telling her to pick up her daughter.

Julie Hartman has heated words for the way her special-needs daughter was let off the bus to walk home alone in a snowstorm January 19 by an El Tejon School bus driver.

Danny Whetton, the acting superintendent, said in two interviews that something may have gone awry with the parents’ “snow chain” calling system, a telephone-tree to inform parents when children are being released from school early.

Vogelsang said “I put my daughter into the custody of the school district from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.; I do not believe that responsibility can be legally shoved off onto volunteer parents calling each other.” She said she was not the only parent trying to find their child that day.

Whetton said the driving staff, administrators and teachers were all working together to inform parents. He also said he is looking into an automated system that might let the district know which parents had not been reached so school staff would be better prepared to make a plan to secure the child’s safety.

–P. Hedlund

This is part of the February 12, 2010 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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