Parents of students at a Brampton elementary school say they’re concerned after a school bus was more than an hour late dropping kids off.

Parents were standing at their children’s normal bus stop at Bloomsbury Avenue and Parliament Hill Place on Feb. 15 at the usual time of 2:45 p.m. About 40 students were on the bus.

The group of parents called the school when the bus was significantly late coming from Mount Royal Public School -- located approximately three kilometres away from the bus stop.

They were told the bus driver had to stop twice because the children were being too noisy for her to complete the route safely. At one point, the driver returned the bus and the children to the school after taking a 20 minute pause.

According to the manager of communications with Peel District School Board Carla Pereira, the driver pulled the bus over along the route stopping for 20 minutes. She then took the students back to the school and parked in the parking lot.

At that point, the vice-principal of the school spoke to the students and told the bus driver that she needed to get them “home immediately.” The bus driver then continued along the route but stopped for another 20 minutes before the students quieted down and they were able to arrive at their destination.

The school later released a written statement explaining what happened:

“The Simba bus driver pulled over the bus for around 20 minutes,” the statement said. “The reason given was excessive noise on the bus. The bus then left again and returned to the school at around 3:30 p.m. with all children on board”

The school’s statement said that they have asked for the bus driver to no longer work on this particular route. The bus company Parkview Transit is in charge of employees for the transportation company Student Transportation of Peel Regional (STOPR) that manages buses in the Peel district.

“The school has now contacted the consortium STOPR to voice our concerns about this issue and we have asked that the bus driver be removed from this route. This however remains the decision of the bus company. We would like to see this matter resolved immediately and are working to ensure the continued safe transportation of our student to and from school.”

In a written statement, Parkview Transit said their driver did the right thing.

“The level of misbehavior on the bus was severe enough that our driver had to stop the bus and then return to the school, in compliance with our safety protocols,” the statement read.

A mother of two students who were on the bus at the time, Daljit Beniwal, told CTV News Toronto that she was very concerned about her 7-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter.

The school board has been told that the same bus driver will continue to operate this route accompanied by a senior bus representative.

Pereira told CP24 that the transportation company’s policy is that if it is too noisy for the bus driver then they need to stop the bus as the students’ safety is their top priority.

“It was scary at that time because all the grandparents, all the parents were out on the street looking for the kids, waiting for the bus,” she said. “There were so many things going through our minds.”

A group of about 20 people were waiting for the bus to arrive.

One parent then left the bus stop and drove to look for the kids. They found the bus still parked at the school around 3:30 p.m. and then followed the bus to the final destination.

Beniwal said that the kids were upset when they got off the bus and her children refused to get on the bus the next day.

“When the kids came here to the stop and all the kids were crying and some of the kids peed in their pants and they were scared and they said they didn’t want to go on the bus again,” she said.

Upon arrival at the bus stop, Beniwal said that the bus driver was angry and unapologetic upon finally arriving at the bus stop.

She said she would like her children to have a different bus driver going forward, but since nothing has changed she has been monitoring the bus closely.