[Cerek the Barbaric]

You're right, Skunk - threatening to withdraw the contract is the only real option the school has. Since the bus service is provided by an outside contracter, the school system has no authority to demand the first driver be fired. However, they certainly could threaten to cancel the entire contract since the same thing happened with the next driver.

I drove a school bus myself (as a substitute driver) for a short while and I never had any kind of "disciplinary problems" on the bus. I also rode the bus as a student for a couple of years. In all my experience, I never saw an incident occur on the bus that was bad enough to justify setting kids out on the side of the road. At the very most, the driver would threaten to turn around and return back to the school to have the ones causing problems disciplined, but even so, that happened maybe twice in the entire time I rode or drove school buses.

There is simply no excuse for this behavior from the contract service. Jacksonville is a large city and I would imagine that First Student has several contracts with the city schools. If the entire school system threatened to cancel their contracts, that would send a serious message and maybe force First Student to get their act together and either fire (or at least discipline) the offending drivers.

It's been my experience that a company's loyalty to it's employees disappears quickly when the employees represent a significant threat to their revenue.