CLARENCE, N.Y. — Students who had signed up for driver education classes in the Clarence Central School District will have to wait until another semester to take the course.
In a letter sent to patents on Tuesday, Superintendent of Schools Geoffrey M. Hicks said the reason is: bugs.
According to the letter, the district contracted with the O'Days Driving School to provide the in-vehicle portion of the driver ed program, because it was the only driver education company that could provide instruction in the morning, and was the only company to bid on the contract the school let seeking a service provider.
The letter goes on to say that after students and parents complained of bugs in one of the cars during the previous school semester, the district "contacted O'Days and asked the company to take immediate corrective action including cleaning the vehicles, changing the vehicles out, and ongoing monitoring."
However, when the second semester driver education program began last week, Hicks says "we received another report of a bug sighting."
Sorry, Kids
"At this point we have exhausted out options," wrote Hicks. "For the health and well being of our students we have no choice but to cancel the community driver education program for this semester.
The letter concludes by stating that parents will be provided full refunds for the money they spent to allow their children to take the course, and that the district will try to find a different vendor for this summer's driver education program.
A person who identified themselves as an employee of O'Days returned 2 on Your Side's phone call seeking comment, but said the owner was out of town and unavailable.
However, they noted that the driving school provides cars and instructors for other school districts and claimed they had never gotten any complaints about bugs.
Vermin only described as "bugs"
The issue was raised during Monday's Clarence Board of Education meeting, by a parent who said the district should have been more transparent about the problem when it first occurred in the fall.
The parent described the vermin as "bed bugs".
However, the district did not identify them as such in the letter sent home to parents.