Rock Hill parents watched the school bus video. Some say there’s still more to see.

Michelle Kluttz didn’t watch much video from the school bus ride that still has her neighborhood abuzz, but she saw more than she wanted.

On Aug. 21, the Rock Hill school district began hearing complaints after upset children started telling their parents about the afternoon ride on a school bus. Multiple Independence Elementary School students told their parents the driver wasn’t driving safely. Some mentioned being yelled at or pushed into a seat.

Parents say some children were dropped off at the wrong spot, others got off the bus early because they were afraid to continue their ride. Parents also were told the bus hit a stop sign and it may have run onto curbs.

A school district spokesperson said parent concerns were addressed and the issue was resolved, and also that at least some statements made by parents were “not entirely correct.”

On Monday morning, parents began watching video of the bus ride.

“They showed me a clip of 15 minutes and fast forwarded through a lot of it,” said May Cherry.

Cherry said she began hearing from neighbors about the bus ride before her children were home and for a while that day, didn’t know if her children were safe. She heard from her children that her son felt threatened and her daughter was pushed into a seat by an adult on the bus.

Watching video Monday morning didn’t make her feel any better, she said.

“No, I don’t feel better about the situation because I still don’t know what happened about the lady putting her hands on my child and threatening my other child,” she said.

Parents say they watched clips rather than the more than two-hour full video. They said they were allowed to view the video individually. Several parents say they heard children on the bus being loud, but nothing out of the ordinary for a typical school bus ride. Several parents said they were shown video from when the driver momentarily left the bus and it began to roll.

The Herald submitted a Freedom of Information Act request Aug 24 to obtain a copy of the video. That request is pending.

Ashley Young said she watched video showing her daughter upset, but still wants to see video of when her daughter became upset. Young’s daughter began crying after the bus took a different route, Young said, and the girl didn’t recognize where she was.

“She was expected to be at home,” Young said. “She started crying then. When she got home, she was just shaking and terrified.”

Young said she also saw video that showed the bus driver leaving the bus.

“It appeared that a child had gotten off the bus when he wasn’t supposed to, and had run around the back of the bus,” Young said.

Young said she couldn’t tell from the video how far the bus moved before the driver returned, but that he stepped on the brake and “some kids were jolted” a little.

“The driver himself got off (the bus),” she said. “The bus kind of jolted a little bit.”

Kluttz said in the clip she watched, the bus was rolling for several seconds.

“It showed the bus rolling for at least five seconds,” she said. “The kids, you could see the terror in their eyes. It showed them all jolt to the front.”

When the bus jolted, Kluttz said, her kindergartener injured his mouth. Both her sons, age 6 and 9, were taken to the emergency room with whiplash and bruising, she said.

“He hit the back of the seat, an then he hit the front of the seat,” Kluttz said. “My baby.”

Several parents say they don’t blame the school, but would like better communication from the district after, parents say, they were given different accounts of what happened. Parents say they received apologies.

For some, the apologies helped.

“They just need to put rules in place on that bus to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again,” Young said.

Parents were concerned that the substitute driver was unfamiliar with the area and was looking at a piece of paper while driving. Young said making sure drivers are more familiar with their routes would help, as might assigned seating and seatbelts on buses.

The apologies weren’t enough for all parents.

While Kluttz doesn’t know if there will be anything more to do after watching the video, just seeing it didn’t ease her concerns.

“Honestly,” she said, “I’m more mad now than I was before.”

Not all parent concerns, like whether a bus runs stop signs, would be evident from video, which shows only the inside of the bus, Kluttz said. She said school leaders have been polite and apologetic, but she wants to see the full video — not just clips — reviewed by someone other than a parent at a time.

“I feel like they should release the video,” Kluttz said.