November 20, 2019–9:44 a.m.
STAFF REPORTS
The Floyd County School System will be sending a letter to parents reminding them that bus drivers will not let children nine and under off of the bus without a parent/guardian or older sibling of middle school age to accompany them.
Georgia DFACS guidelines state that a child under the age of nine should never be left alone, according to Floyd County School Superintendent Dr. Jeff Wilson.
“Most of our parents do what they’re supposed to do,” he said. “We’ve just had a number of incidents during this school year where we’ve gone to drop a child off and there is nobody at that house.”
In such situations, the student must be returned to school and the parents or guardians notified.
In an attempt to address the problem, the school system is implementing new protocol that gives a warning to parents the first time a child has to be returned to school.
For subsequent offenses, the child will be prohibited from riding school-sponsored transportation in the afternoon for three days for second offense up to 40 days for a 7th offense.
An 8th offense would result in school administration meeting with the parent or guardian to discuss the situation and a referral will be made to DFACS.
“At every one of our primary and elementary schools we have an after-school care program for students whose parents do have to work a little later,” Wilson added. “It’s very inexpensive and we even have scholarships for parents that just don’t have the money.”
You can read the letter going out to parents here.