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Wayland Union Schools Transportation Supervisor Resigns Following FOX 17 Investigation

Posted at 11:17 AM, Apr 25, 2014
and last updated 2014-04-25 11:27:17-04

WAYLAND, Mich. (April 25, 2014)– The Transportation Supervisor at Wayland Union Public Schools, Jeff Schilthroat, has resigned following an investigation into how he handled an assault on a school bus on March 11.

In that incident, Amber Canfield said her special needs child was assaulted by other children.

The fight was caught on bus security video.

However, when Canfield and her husband went to review the video of the assault, Schilthroat said he stopped the video recording before they could see the bus driver’s reaction to their son.

He said that they didn’t need to see driver Malissa Westfahl being unsympathetic to the child and told administrators during a hearing he felt it was an embarrassment to the school.

Administrators felt that his attempt to hide the last portion of the video made the situation much worse.

The superintendent’s office issued a statement Friday morning, saying:

“Over the course of the past several weeks, we have been investigating concerns that involved both students and staff members within the transportation department.  There were allegations of inappropriate and unacceptable behaviors by two employees within our transportation department and the way students were behaving on the bus also became a concern.

During the course of our investigation we accepted the resignation of the Transportation and Maintenance Supervisor.  He is no longer employed by our District as of April 11.  Due to legal requirements we could not officially announce his resignation for at least seven days following the signing of the agreement and so the resignation became official yesterday. ”

Read the full statementhere.

It also states that the bus driver involved in that incident, Malissa Westfahl, has also been released from employment with the district.