North Kitsap School District under fire over its handling of allegations of sexual acts on school bus

POULSBO - A disturbing discovery Q13 FOX News first revealed.

Allegations of sexual behavior on board a school bus involving special needs kids.

Poulsbo Elementary parents are demanding answers from the North Kitsap School district.

They say administrators took too long to notify them about alleged sexual acts on a school bus.

It allegedly happened in 2014 , a parent notified the district last May.

It took more than 5 months for other parents with students on that bus to be alerted.

Parents say they are shocked that a school bus driver didn't catch students engaging in sexual acts for months. That school bus driver is now on paid administrative leave.

“Nothing was conveyed for months,” parent Kim Watland said.

Parents are angry calling the district’s actions negligent.

“I had to do the digging I requested the police report,” Watland said.

A Kitsap County Sheriff`s report says a 10 year-old boy and a 9 year-old girl had repeated sexual contact on a school bus, a bus carrying all special needs students.

Watland and other parents believe their children witnessed the acts.

“I think they should have let us know sooner,” Watland said.

“Every single child on that bus had to have either seen or been a victim,” parent April Ferguson said.

The report says investigators viewed hours of bus surveillance video that revealed the sexual acts. Parents say their kids told them the 10 year-old boy exposed himself and forced sexual contact on them over a period of months in 2014. Watland says the bus driver is at fault for not catching the behavior but she is more frustrated with the district for failing to tell parents for five months.

“They know the kids that rode that bus I mean they have that information,” Watland said.

The district on Friday said they needed time for police to identify the children who may have been victimized.

“We didn`t have the evidence that anything had occurred, we really wanted to respect the privacy of all and make sure we had the facts,” Superintendent Patty Page said.

Parents say that judgment call is unforgivable, especially when potential victims are special needs.

“I am hearing from other parents they are acting out sexual acts they never did before now we are hearing about it and reading this police report and we are like oh this where it’s coming from,” Watland said.

Watland says she started driving her daughter to school last year even before she learned of the allegations.

“It was tears crying, no mommy I don`t want to ride the bus that was in May I pulled her off the bus,” Watland said.

Watland says since her daughter has cognitive and speech delays she never found out why she was scared to get on the bus but now the mom says it all makes sense,” Watland said.

“We want parents to know we are distraught that I take this personally,” Page said.

“I feel like it was handled all wrong from the start of it,” Watland said.

The father of the 10 year old boy told Q13 FOX News on Friday that the boy no longer goes to a North Kitsap school, something the district also confirmed.

The father says his son is getting online schooling and counseling.

The district says they referred the case to CPS. They are also now looking into whether all buses with special needs kids should have a para educator on the bus.