Rockford Bus Driver Gets Probation After Leaving 3-Year-Old Alone for Over an Hour
A former Rockford Public Schools bus driver received three months probation and $420 in fines after leaving a 3-year-old boy alone on a bus for over an hour in November 2025.
A former Rockford Public Schools bus driver was sentenced to three months of probation after a 3-year-old boy was left alone on her bus for more than an hour.
The 55-year-old driver pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor child abuse charge related to the November 2025 incident at the school district bus garage off Northland Drive NE, according to court records.
The incident
Investigators with the Kent County Sheriff’s Office received information on Nov. 15 that the child was left unattended on a Friday afternoon in a bus parked at the garage.
The driver "neglected to do the required safety sweep of her bus at the end of her route," a sheriff’s deputy wrote in a probable cause affidavit.
A review of video footage confirmed the child was alone on the bus at the garage for one hour and 16 minutes, records show.
Sentencing and consequences
The driver was sentenced in early June to:
- Three months of probation
- $420 in fines and costs
The incident also cost the Rockford-area woman her job. Rockford Public Schools confirmed she is no longer employed by the district.
"We train drivers and reinforce with them the importance of following safety procedures and protocols," Superintendent Steve Matthews said in a statement. "Clearly there was a failure in this particular case."
District response
Matthews said all bus drivers are trained on safety policies every year. After this incident, the district retrained drivers on those existing policies.
"After this incident, we retrained the drivers on these policies and reinforced why they are important to follow each day," Matthews said.
The district also installed "child check buzzers" on buses to help ensure daily checks are performed, Matthews said.
Attorney’s statement
The driver’s attorney, Fil Iorio, said the woman loved her job and misses seeing the students and colleagues at Rockford.
"It was her passion, and she misses seeing her colleagues at Rockford and the kids who rode her bus," Iorio said. "She feels very badly about what happened and is grateful that the student suffered no physical injury."
The child was not physically injured in the incident.
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