COUSHATTA, La. — A Louisiana school district is investigating complaints that a white school bus driver ordered nine black children to sit at the back of the bus.

Red River Parish Schools Superintendent Kay Easley acknowledged she investigated the claim, and she confirmed to The (Shreveport) Times said the driver wasn't on the same route Wednesday.

Easley did not return calls Thursday seeking further comment. The newspaper said she had declined to comment further on Wednesday.

Iva Richmond, whose 14- and 15-year-old children were on the bus, told The Associated Press on Thursday that they previously had a black bus driver, but their bus assignment changed this year. When school started this month, the white driver told them she had assigned them seats, with the black children at the back of the bus.

Richmond said she complained to a local principal, who told the driver that if any children were assigned to seats, all would have to be.

Early last week, the driver assigned black students to two seats in the back of the bus, an arrangement that had some of the smaller children sitting in the laps of older children.

"All nine children were assigned to two seats in the back of the bus and the older ones had to hold the smaller ones in their laps," she said.

Richmond said her complaints to parish school officials were not immediately acted on. But she said Easley told her Wednesday that the situation would be addressed.

"She said she was going to take care of it but she could not go into details about how she's going to take care of it," Richmond said.

NAACP District Vice President James Panell of Shreveport told The Times he would give federal attorneys details of the situation this week. The northwest Louisiana district has about 1,600 public school students.

:thinking

If this is blatant racism, she should be fired. I'd really like to know the rest of the story though. Did she seat the kids together because they were all friends? Was the bus so crowded that there were also white students with children on their laps? What was her reasoning? When I was a kid, the back of the bus was a desireable place to be. However, I never had to listen to stories of my grandmother or grandfather being forced to sit at the back of a public bus, and made to feel lower than dirt. This should be interesting to keep up with.

The driver has been suspended without pay for the rest of the investigation :yes

At first I thought maybe it was by chance the driver randomly assigned the seats and this is what happened. But I think the the driver was being an idiot the more I think about it.

wow is all I can say:inshock

Sorta reminds me of a Rosa Parks story.

Tragically, yes.

I swear....some people should not be allowed around others!! That just makes me sick that she could and would do that...I am glad that she is suspended, but it did sound like it took a little while to get this done. I personally would have had her off that bus day one...but not working for a school system I am sure that there are certain things that need to be done first before they can suspend someone from a job. I sure hope that she doens't get that job back

That is TERRIBLE! Fire that Biotch! I can not STAND racist people!

:no

This is a court of debate, not a court of law. Thusly, we do not have all of the information available to us, and are made to assume some.

Was this a full-sized bus or a short bus?

Were the children placed in the back seat the last stop of the route? If so, were the other children placed in a similar fashion based on their house's location along the route?

Did the children have a history of interfering with the previous bus driver? Do we have documented proof of it, if it happened?

Was the driver notified or informed by the children that children were sitting in the laps of older children? This is HIGHLY illegal, and the driver would have been well aware of this law.

If we've been given the true answers to all of these questions, THEN we can make a proposal for her punishment or waiver. Until then, we're making assumptions based on a newspaper article written by someone who's whole purpose in life is to sell newspapers. Doesn't anyone else find it odd that the questions I asked aren't mentioned in the article? I mean, "Everyone on the bus had a seating assignment, based on <reason>." would have been pretty important to the story, but ANY mention of the answer to this isn't stated. It says there was a seating chart, but doesn't indicate the system of it. I won't assume anyone is racist based on a money-driven media source. No one else should, either - judge not, lest ye be judged yourself, right?

I swear....some people should not be allowed around others!! That just makes me sick that she could and would do that...I am glad that she is suspended, but it did sound like it took a little while to get this done. I personally would have had her off that bus day one...but not working for a school system I am sure that there are certain things that need to be done first before they can suspend someone from a job. I sure hope that she doens't get that job back

:agree