Found this on the web last week. Read down to the last paragraph or so - is this ATWT's product?
Thursday, August 17, 2006 - The Dallas Morning News, TX -
A 12-year-old special-education student was forgotten on a Dallas school bus for nearly five hours this week as temperatures outside approached 100 degrees.
Uriel Arellano, a student at Edison Middle Learning Center in the Dallas school district, was found about 1:45 p.m. Tuesday, Dallas police said. District officials said he was uninjured.
Uriel was left alone on the bus around 9 a.m., said Deanne Hullender, spokeswoman for Dallas County Schools, which provides busing for DISD and other area school districts.
Ms. Hullender said the bus was parked at a Dallas County Schools service center lot after the driver made morning rounds.
She said an employee at the lot discovered the boy.
The driver, who wasn't identified, has been on the job for more than 20 years, Ms. Hullender said.
The woman was suspended without pay, and Dallas police were investigating.
Temperatures at the time Uriel was on the bus ranged from 87 to 99 degrees in Dallas, but Ms. Hullender said the vehicle's windows were open, as was its door.
She said the boy, who can hear but doesn't speak, didn't leave the bus on his own because he'd been taught not to get off without a teacher or parent.
The student continued to follow the rule even after he was discovered.
He refused to leave the bus, Ms. Hullender said, so water was brought to him and the bus was driven to an area hospital.
"He was conscious; he was alert," Ms. Hullender said. Paramedics boarded the bus at the hospital to check on Uriel and eventually talked him into getting off. The boy is doing fine, district officials said.
His parents were called while the bus was en route to the hospital.
"When they told me that they had forgotten him in the bus, it felt terrible," said Emma Arellano, Uriel's mother. "I thought he was dead."
Ms. Arellano said she found it hard to believe that the bus driver overlooked her son, whom she described as big. She also said she can't believe that Uriel just sat there in the heat because he's "not the type to stay in one place."
"When they found him, he was already asleep, and I think the heat was already getting to him," she said.
Last month, a 4-year-old boy died of heatstroke after being left in a van at a Pleasant Grove day care, police say. Authorities suspect Blynithia Washington, owner of Dream House Learning Center, didn't notice when Jacob Fox remained in the van. She is charged with injury to a child, recklessly causing serious bodily injury. Her attorney has denied she's at fault.
Elise Mitchell, senior attorney for Advocacy Inc. in Dallas, said the agency will look into Uriel's case. Advocacy Inc. is a federally funded nonprofit law firm that represents special-education students and their families.
Ms. Hullender said the bus driver didn't follow procedures designed to ensure that all children get off the bus at school. That process involves the driver retrieving a bright pink magnetic card from the back of the bus when the shift begins. At the end of the shift, the driver walks down the aisle to check each row and then returns the card to the back of the bus.
Ms. Hullender said a new tracking system for special-education children will prevent such incidents. Students will carry a computer card or chip, and a global positioning system will track them to determine whether they left their buses.
The tracking system will only be used on special-education buses and has already been installed on 200 of 425 buses, Ms. Hullender said.
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