Parents say Olympia School District bungled response to arrest of bus driver

Parents at Pioneer Elementary School say they’re concerned about the Olympia School District’s response to the recent arrest of Jimmy Wall, a former school bus driver suspected of raping a student.

Wall, 50, was arrested May 6, and is charged with four counts of first-degree child rape and two counts of first-degree child molestation. The allegations date to the 2007-2008 school year, when Wall is suspected of having had sex with a Madison Elementary School student. Wall resigned from his position as a driver on March 30.

Approximately 60 parents gathered in the Pioneer Elementary School library Thursday evening to ask school officials why it took so long for them to be notified about the allegations against Wall. Administrators sent out a districtwide email May 9 telling parents of Wall’s arrest, and his March 30 resignation.

One parent asked why parents learned of Wall’s arrest through the media first, and why the district couldn’t have notified parents when the investigation began.

Assistant Superintendent Jennifer Priddy said that as soon as she heard about the allegations against Wall, her first priority was to place him on administrative leave so that he wouldn’t have additional contact with children. She said she didn’t realize at this point that Wall had already resigned.

“It was very important to me that (Jimmy) Wall was not driving children,” Priddy said.

But at that point, she said, it would not have been possible to notify parents of the situation, because Wall hadn’t yet been arrested or formally charged.

“We don’t reach out to parents when there is an allegation of a crime,” Priddy said. “We have to let the police do their work.”

“We have to weigh the possibility of communicating wrong information, information that the police may not be going to act on,” she added.

Heidi Magaro, one of the parents who organized the meeting, shared her family’s experiences and said that the district’s communication problems began well before Wall’s arrest. She said she received a letter from the district on March 28, informing her that an attorney had filed a request under the state Public Records Act for contact information for families on route 13.

Priddy said the request was made by Darrell Cochran, a Tacoma-based civil attorney who has filed multiple lawsuits against the Olympia School District regarding Gary Schafer, another former school bus driver who was convicted in 2011 on child rape charges.

Magaro said she was unsure whether her child rode that bus, so she contacted Priddy. She said that she didn’t hear from Priddy for several days, and ultimately learned that her kindergartener rode the route 13 bus ― which had been driven by Wall.

She said that she learned from Priddy on April 16 that the driver was under investigation.

“My concern was that this information was only provided to me because I asked, and not to everyone,” Magaro said.

Superintendent Dick Cvitanich acknowledged during the meeting that mistakes were made regarding how parents were informed about the situation.

“I don’t want to sit here publicly and say that there wasn’t a mistake,” Cvitanich said. “The letters that went out and confused parents, that’s a mistake.”

One parent asked why buses aren’t staffed with multiple adults, given the district’s history with abuse by drivers.

“To have two people on every bus would double our transportation costs, and our transportation costs are not insignificant,” Priddy said.

“The state does not allocate for two adults on the bus, it allocates for one adult on the bus and it underfunds that,” she added.

Priddy said that the district could move in that direction if that’s what the community wants — but that would mean cuts to other areas of the district.

Rick Engelhart, a representative for the union that represents the school district’s bus drivers, was invited to speak at the meeting and told parents that the allegations against Wall have affected morale among the district’s drivers. He said that vast majority of these employees are good, professional people.

He encouraged parents to communicate with children’s drivers.

“If parents could communicate with the drivers in the morning if they have the chance, that would be positive,” Engelhart said. “That would go a long way.”

“If you can give the driver just a little ‘good morning,’ that goes a long way,” he added.

This story was originally published May 27, 2016 at 2:22 PM with the headline "Parents say Olympia School District bungled response to arrest of bus driver."