Parents concerned after 7-year-old crashes two Independence school buses

INDEPENDENCE, Mo. — She won't be able to drive for another nine years but parents of an Independence second grader say she's already had her first crash.

Alannah Cheffen, 7, says she crashed her school bus into another bus on school grounds.

Independence Schools have yet to provide details on the collision that occurred Tuesday outside Three Trails Elementary and Independence police say they weren't notified. No one was hurt.

Based on information gathered by FOX4, it appears the bus driver may have been trying to teach the kids what to do in an emergency. But one family says it nearly led to a real emergency.

Cheffen doesn't sound like the best candidate to drive a school bus. Quizzed about the functions of the gas and brake Wednesday, she had trouble. That's why her family wants to know why she was allowed at the controls of a school bus Tuesday.

Three Trails Elementary parents of impacted students received an email Tuesday morning notifying them of "a minor incident involving your child's bus during drop-off this morning where one bus slowly rolled into another while on school grounds-

Until she spoke with her daughters, Ambrosia Holt logically assumed a bus driver was driving.

"I was blown away. It was actually my child that was instructed to be behind the wheel of a bus," Holt said.

Holt says she's since been told by her daughters and a transportation supervisor the bus driver was giving the students training on what to do if she had a medical emergency, like how to open doors and windows.

According to the girls when no one volunteered, the second grader was called to the front of the bus for hands on experience in the driver's seat.

"She told me to press that thing and when I pressed it it made the whole bus go backwards. Then I pressed the gas button and it stopped out of nowhere," Cheffen said.

"When it happened and we hit the back of the bus she just didn't say nothing and she went back and she just parked it like nothing was happening," Cheffen's sister, Amiyah Brown, 10, said.

Police say they weren't notified of the collision, parents in the school pick up line Wednesday didn't seem to know about it either, or the hands on training.

"It's not something I would be comfortable with my kid being on a bus and being either expected to either help into the driver side or being on a bus with another kid who is driving," parent Sheila Harrison said.

"If I didn't know that they have our children doing this I'm pretty sure there's other parents that do no know because this could have resulted into something super big," Cheffen's mother said.

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Cheffen says the biggest lesson she learned from her training is she never plans to drive a school bus again.

FOX 4 will continue to try to ask the district questions about the collision, how it happened, whether the parking brake was engaged properly and any emergency bus training involving students. It's also unknown whether the school district is investigating the school bus driver or if she could face discipline.