Right Before I Go to Bed, I Read This Sh*t - Almost another $200,000 worth

Deaf student left miles from home

"Pinellas school officials are investigating an incident Tuesday that left a 13-year-old deaf girl at the wrong bus stop, in the rain, more than two miles from her home"

"She tried to use sign language and other hand gestures, said her father, Joe Catalano. But the driver seemed frustrated and hurried her off the bus. Asked whether Heather tried to communicate with the driver through a written message, Joe Catalano said, "It never got to that point."

He added: "My daughter panicked and didn't know what to do.""

A 13 year old deaf girl.

Signing to the bus driver. Sign language we will presume that was professionally taught to her by an education system that recognizes special education.

Not a 13 year old girl saying "Fu*k you bro, I ain't gettin' off here!". Not a 13 year old girl all up in the bus driver's face. Not a 13 year old girl yelling and screaming. Because if she had done all of the above, a frickin referral would have been written, she would have been suspended from school transportation and sent to alternative school.

But no, we have a meek disabled, educated kid trying to tell an adult that the adult is wrong.

Fat chance that an adult that works for a public education system would even have a second thought about their actions being questioned, much less be questioned by a disabled kid (or parent for that matter).


I am quite sure this is forgotten:


Right bus, wrong stop, devastating consequences
Eric Martin died three years ago when a car struck him as he walked home from the wrong bus stop, 5 miles from home. Could it happen again?
By LOGAN D. MABE, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published November 3, 2002

“Eric Martin, a sixth-grader at Walker Middle School, was 10 years old and 5 miles from home when he was dropped off at the wrong school bus stop Oct. 28, 1999. It was the first day of an after-school tutoring class, so he went home on a different bus with a different driver who had different bus stops.
In the growing darkness, Eric set out on the long walk from VillaRosa to his family's house in Wyndham Lakes. He was hit and instantly killed on Lutz-Lake Fern Road.
Kimberly Martin sued the Hillsborough County School Board claiming negligence on the part of bus driver Linda Moore, who was driving Eric's bus that day.
The case never went to court. The School Board settled out of court for the state-mandated maximum of $200,000. Martin says she didn't sue for money but to bring attention to what she calls a flawed system. “

"On the advice of legal counsel, the district's director of transportation declined to discuss procedures in the context of the Martin case. Mark Hart, the district's spokesman, released a statement saying that dismissal procedures are regularly reviewed. Bus drivers now get a "rollover" list of student passengers to help drivers at the beginning of the school year. And elementary school officials now have an instructional video tape on effective dismissals to watch.

Hart emphasized that these changes were in the works before Eric's death. "

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"Eric made it about 3 miles trudging along busy Lutz-Lake Fern Road before a Dodge Ram, driven by University of South Florida student Christine Matanane, hit him. Matanane said she tried to avoid the boy but couldn't. It was about 7:25 p.m., 40 minutes after sunset. Eric's parents had been driving all over looking for him.

A little after 9 p.m. sheriff's deputies delivered the news to Kimberly Martin. She knew why they were there before they said a word. "


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"The case never went to court. The School Board settled out of court for the state-mandated maximum of $200,000. Martin says she didn't sue for money but to bring attention to what she calls a flawed system.

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I despise the arrogance and ignorance of those who have the authority to abuse it.

The very ones that need our help the most are used for a cathartic expression of power and authority because they can't fight back without the unchallengeable retaliation that they face.

I fight the fight because they can't.

I mock and make snide, sardonic comments about the system because it is what it is, and I recognize it.

Prove me wrong.