Remembering Everette Johnson, 5-Year-Old Atlanta Boy Killed by His School Bus

Tragically, no matter how much school bus safety training is provided to them or how much it’s pounded into the heads of school bus drivers to check their mirrors constantly before leaving bus stops, it seems there will be incidents like what happened on Tuesday.

An Atlanta Public Schools bus ran over 5-year-old Everette Johnson, a kindergartner at Usher Elementary School in the north part of town, after several children unloaded at the afternoon stop. According to news reports, Johnson turned around and headed back to the bus after unloading and apparently dropped his backpack beneath the bus. The driver didn’t see him and began to pull away from the curb as Johnson reached beneath the bus for his backpack.

Per School Transportation News research, Everette’s death was the third since August, the second of the regular 2009-2010 school year and the 16th of the 2009 calendar year. The Kansas Department of Education surveys all 50 states each year to determine the number of student fatalities that occur in the so-called school bus danger zone, the approximate 10- to 12-foot area around the vehicle where the majority of student deaths occur as opposed to inside the bus.

From the 1970-1971 through the 2007-2008 school years, the KDOE’s pupil transportation unit data shows that 718 students have been killed by the school bus during the loading or unloading process.

Results for 2008-2009 are expected late this year or in early 2010.

A Tough Lesson Yet to be Learned by Many Motorists

Tragedy occurred this past week when a Raleigh, N.C., girl was struck and killed by a passing motorist after disembarking the school bus. Ashley Ramos-Ramirez was only 6-years old and a first grader. While technically not the new school year’s first fatality because Ashley attended a year-round elementary school, her senseless death at the hands of an 83-year old woman who said she didn’t see the school bus stop arm or flashing red lights calls attention to school bus safety, said Ashley’s principal.

“This is definitely something we can learn from to make sure...everyone understands school bus safety rules,” Green Elementary Principal Shelly Watson said.

Doubly unfortunate for Ashley’s family is that the driver is only facing misdemeanor charges because a new North Carolina law pass this summer that requires an automatic felony charges for anyone charged with killing a student while illegally passing a stopped school bus does not go into effect until Dec. 1.

The news article points to information on the School Transportation News Web site on the inherent safety of school buses, citing fatality data that shows more children are killed in the so-called "danger zone," the 10-foot perimeter around school buses as they are stopped to load or unload students.