Bus driver scolds South Shore student for speaking English in exchange caught on camera
CTV
A South Shore family is fuming after a bus driver told a 12-year-old student to speak French and said she was disrespectful by speaking English. It happened Friday when the driver was taking several children, who are neurodiverse, to school.
A South Shore family is fuming after a bus driver told a 12-year-old student to speak French and said it was disrespectful to speak to him in English.
It happened Friday when the driver was taking several children, who are neurodiverse, to school.
Amanda Mullan says her daughter, Maddison Schmidt, lives with autism and ADHD. She attends REACH, the only English-language public school for children with special needs on Montreal's South Shore.
On the commute to school that day, Schmidt says her bus driver was telling the children to speak French.
"It made me feel like I wasn't allowed to speak English, and I really didn't feel comfortable in that situation," said Schmidt.
The 12-year-old says she then started recording what the driver was saying.
"You don't respect me when you don't want to talk to me in my language (…) you're living in a country who (sic) everybody is speaking French, and you don't want to speak French? It's something wrong," the driver can be heard saying in the recording, reviewed by CTV News.
