In 2024, the National Safety Council reported 27 child deaths nationwide as a result of being left in a hot vehicle, with Texas having the highest count of four incidents. Now, a Houston mother claims a school bus driver nearly added her two children into the tally.
Coshenna Smith says on August 22, her 12-year-old son Bryce and 11-year-old daughter Cionni came home crying. On home surveillance footage obtained by The Root, Cionni is seen sluggishly walking toward the door, sobbing that she couldn’t breathe. Bryce walks up behind her, appearing to have taken his shirt off after it was soaked in sweat.
Smith says her children told her that the bus driver, a white woman, dropped off her own daughter before slowly turning down a dirt road, demanding the other children close the windows in the back of the bus. A video from inside the bus shows the students argue to keep the windows open.
“We need AC!” shouted one child.
“It’s hot as hell and you’re driving slow as f-ck,” another child shouted offscreen.
“Don’t even start because it was like this the year before and we’re back here again,” the driver said, looking at the children through the rearview mirror. As the children continued complaining about the heat, the video appears to show the driver putting the bus in park, resulting in a ripple of sighs and groans among the kids.
“Miss it’s hot back here! These children need to breathe. You need to get us home!” another student shouted in the video. “I don’t know why you’re getting mad. It’s not our fault. You signed up for this.”
The vehicle, which did not have air conditioning, sat on the road in 103 degree weather, prolonging the 30-minute commute home as the children tarried with the bus driver. The driver, meanwhile, was using a personal fan, according to Smith. Cionni, who has chronic asthma, said on the camera footage that she couldn’t breathe by the time she got back home.
“People are arrested all the time because they accidentally subjected their children to these conditions while they ran into a gas station,” said civil rights attorney Harry Daniels. “This woman intentionally put these children at risk for more than half an hour during a 103 degree heat advisory and no one has done anything.”
Daniels isn’t wrong. Last year, a daycare van driver was investigated after allegedly leaving a 1-year-old girl in the vehicle in 100-degree heat, according to WOWT. Just last month, the parents of a 2-year-old were arrested after leaving their toddler in a hot car parked at a children’s hospital in 92-degree heat, per Little Rock officers. Though Smith’s children are older, the annual statistics on child heatstrokes deaths track children under 15 years of age. Last year, 29 children died of heatstrokes from sweltering cars, per the NCS.
It’s unclear whether the Sealy Independent School District hired an outside bus company or if the bus company belongs to the district. Still, Daniels says, the family and his firm are seeking legal avenues against the district following the incident.
“This isn’t punishment. It’s torture and it’s child endangerment,” said Daniels in a statement.