Mom says daughter who has autism was attacked on school van in Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH — A local mother wants answers after she says another student attacked her daughter on a school van.

Her 10-year-old daughter, who is nonverbal and has autism, is covered in scratches and bite marks and she says the driver did nothing to help her.

Shareena Johnson says her daughter Zimeera was on her way to school at the Conroy Education Center this week when she was attacked by another student on the school van hired by Pittsburgh Public Schools.

“She was terrified and shaking,” Shareena explained. “There were no words for how I felt because I was so in shock seeing the damage done to her body.”

Zimeera’s arm is badly swollen, with huge red welt marks on her arm, shoulder and neck, scratch marks on her scalp and deep bite marks.

Shareena says it was the school nurse who called her, saying she needed to take her to the hospital.

She says the school van driver, who was a substitute, did not help in any way.

“They told me protocol would be depending on severity to pull over,” Shareena explained. “Their driver did not pull over, he did not call dispatch. He didn’t call 911. He continued to drive to school with her being attacked in the back seat.”

There are no cameras on the bus and Zimeera and the other students are non-verbal, so Shareena doesn’t know what happened.

She wants the bus transportation company, Krise Transportation Services, to take responsibility and to have a plan to ensure student safety.

Channel 11 spoke with Krise Transportation Thursday afternoon. They said:

“We are aware of the incident we are working internally with our employees and school district on the full investigation to understand all the details of the incident.”

As a mom, Shareena says the painful thing is her daughter now cowers and is afraid.

“It’s heartbreaking. I don’t know how she feels, she can’t express to me what is happening,” she added.

Shareena told us she’s not letting her daughter back on the bus for now. She also said she has not received an apology from the bus company.

Krise Transportation has since been removed from the route taking students with special needs to Conroy.

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