Howard County school bus drivers will no longer have the option of independently deciding to return sick children to their homes or bus stops, under a revised set of driver guidelines set to be issued later this summer.

The change, according to transportation director David Drown, was prompted in part by an incident last September in which a driver released a 5-year-old with a bloody nose, along with two siblings, near their home during a morning run without checking to see if a parent was present.

Under the new guidelines, drivers will have the option of continuing on their route to the school and alerting a nurse or administrator to the child's illness or, in the case of a more serious illness, calling the school or the pupil transportation office for direction.

The change was prompted by the September 2008 incident and ongoing questions about how to best handle other situations like it, Drown said.

"We thought it was time to review" the guidelines, he said. "It was outdated."

The portion of the handbook regarding students who become ill on the bus was written in the mid-1980s -- prior to the availability of cell phones, Drown said.

The latest bus driver handbook is being prepared for printing and is expected to be distributed to drivers at in-service training later this summer or in the fall, he said.

The handbook is reviewed annually and updated when necessary -- about every two years -- Drown said, adding that it was last updated in 2006.

Ellicott City parent Lori Gerohristodoulos drew attention to the bus procedures last fall when she questioned why her 5-year-old son was let off his school bus shortly after boarding it because he got a bloody nose.

Gerohristodoulos said she was angry that her injured son and his two older brothers, ages 8 and 9, could have been released from the bus to an empty house because the driver did not check to see if she was still at home. She also was upset that the driver let her sons off the bus across Old Columbia Pike from their house and bus stop.

She said she felt bus drivers were not trained adequately and should have continued on to Veterans Elementary School rather than risk dropping the children off at an empty house.

While the driver had the discretion to drop off the children, he didn't follow the procedure properly because he dropped them off across Old Columbia Pike from their house and did not check for the presence of an adult, Drown said at the time of the incident.

Gerohristodoulos' concerns were echoed at the time by Board of Education chairman Frank Aquino, who said the existing procedures might not be appropriate in certain situations and should be reevaluated.

Gerohristodoulos could not be reached for comment on the handbook revisions.

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