As the small community of Buda tries to recover from a tragedy that claimed the lives of two people, including a young child, parents at Tom Green Elementary are calling for greater oversight in the wake of a deadly bus crash. Kim Fannin, a local parent of two students at the school, spoke out about the need for accountability at the district and state levels, given the recent catastrophe that resonated through the town, as per CBS Austin.
"The minute news broke, everyone on my Facebook feed was reaching out to other members of the community asking for love and support and asking for prayers and doing all that they could," Fannin said, in a statement obtained by CBS Austin. The school is pushing forward, equipping all buses with seatbelts within three weeks, but Fannin believes this is just a start. Struggling to deal with the growth in the Buda and Kyle area, she questioned the adequacy of the monitoring of CDL license holders, particularly those operating heavy vehicles like cement trucks.
Last Friday, the community was shaken when a cement truck struck a school bus carrying students from a field trip, resulting in the deaths of 5-year-old Ulysses Rodriguez Montoya and 33-year-old Ryan Wallace. According to KVUE, Ulysses, who was fond of the color green, his family, school, and dinosaurs, was an outstanding and joyful kid. Ryan Wallace, a Ph.D. student at the University of Texas not associated with the field trip, was also killed.
Hays CISD expressed their condolences, stating the family is "extremely grief-stricken" but supported by their church family and school community. "They're a family of faith and they have support from their church family and I wanted them to know that they have our support from the school family as well," a district spokesperson said.
