A 37-year-old bus driver for the Clinton Central School District in central New York has been charged with a misdemeanor after a 5-year-old was dragged by the bus on Monday, November 2, according to the Oneida County Sheriff's Office. Deputies said the child's backpack was caught in the bus door.
Deputies responded that afternoon to Martin Drive in the Town of Kirkland, the sheriff's office said in a Facebook post on Tuesday, November 3. According to the sheriff's office, Tasha Van Dayne, 37, of Clinton, was driving a 2023 full-size IC Bus on her afternoon route. She stopped at the child's home, and several children got off.
Deputies said Van Dayne closed the door as the last child stepped off, and the child's backpack was trapped in the doors. The child was dragged "a distance" before the bus stopped and suffered minor injuries, the sheriff's office said.
Van Dayne turned herself in to deputies on November 3, Sheriff Robert Maciol said in a second post. She was arrested and released on an appearance ticket, a written notice to show up in court, on a charge of second-degree reckless endangerment, a class A misdemeanor. She is scheduled to appear in Kirkland Town Court on November 16. She has been charged, not convicted, and the sheriff's office said the investigation is ongoing.
The district described the same sequence in a statement posted November 3. It said the incident happened during "one of our elementary afternoon bus runs" and that the bus kept moving, dragging the student "for a short distance before the driver became aware of what had happened and stopped." The district did not name the driver. "The driver involved in this incident will no longer be transporting students," it said.
"While we are relieved that the student did not sustain serious physical injuries, we recognize that this was a frightening and traumatic experience, not only for the student involved, but also for the children who were still on the bus and witnessed what occurred," the district said. The district said it contacted families of students on that bus run and that its school support team would provide counseling and support "as needed." It added that it would not share more personal information about the student or family.
Utica TV station WKTV reported that the child is a student at Clinton Elementary School. The school serves pre-K through fifth grade and enrolled 563 students in 2024-25, including 81 kindergartners, according to allk12's analysis of federal data. The Clinton Central School District runs three schools, one elementary, one middle, and one high school, with 1,182 students that year.
Deaths in school bus loading zones
The Kansas State Department of Education collects reports each year on students killed in or around the spots where children get on and off school buses. Its latest survey, covering 2024-25 and released October 30, 2025, counted six deaths nationwide. All six students were struck by school buses, and three of the six were 5 years old. North Dakota, New Mexico, New Jersey, and Washington, D.C., did not take part.
In the survey's case summaries, children were hit by a bus's wheels or front after getting off, while running to catch the bus, or, in one Wisconsin case, after crawling under the bus to pick up a dropped item. Over the survey's 55 years, it has recorded 1,279 student deaths in loading zones. School buses caused 723 of them, or 56.5%, and 934 of the students, or 73%, were 9 or younger.
Federal crash data counts a wider set of deaths. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) defines a school-transportation-related crash as one that directly or indirectly involves a school bus, or another vehicle working as one, carrying children to or from school or school activities. Its fact sheet published July 2026 found that 204 school-age children, defined as 18 and younger, died in those crashes from 2015 to 2024. Of them, 77 were pedestrians and 39 were riding in school transportation vehicles. NHTSA said 55% of the school-age pedestrians killed were 5 to 10 years old. Rules for riders differ by state, and only nine states require seat belts on school buses.
Sources
Oneida County Sheriff's Office: Facebook post on the November 2 incident on Martin Drive
Oneida County Sheriff's Office: Facebook post on the arrest of Tasha Van Dayne
Clinton Central School District: Statement Regarding a School Bus Incident
Kansas State Department of Education: 2024-25 National School Bus Loading and Unloading Survey
NHTSA: School-Transportation-Related Traffic Crashes, 2015-2024 Data
People: School Bus Driver Arrested After 5-Year-Old Child Was Dragged Along Road When Backpack Got Stuck in Door, Sheriff Alleges
WKTV: 5-year-old Clinton student dragged by school bus; driver arrested, deputies say
School and enrollment counts from allk12's analysis of National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Common Core of Data, 2024-25.
