The Denver Public Schools bus driver who crashed into a house last month, injuring more than two dozen students, is no longer employed by the school district, officials said Wednesday.
Andre Pettigrew, assistant superintendent for administrative services, would not elaborate on why Katherine Sierra, 58, no longer works there.
Sierra faces 25 counts of careless driving resulting in injury, for each student hurt in the crash and the driver of a parked car that also was hit.
“Her last day was today,” Pettigrew said Wednesday. “It’s all related to a personnel matter, and I’m not at liberty to discuss why in the press.”
Dean Vakas, director of transportation operations, told a local TV station that Sierra was fired for “negligence.”
Sierra lost control of the bus and smashed into a parked car before crashing into the front of a house at East Fifth Avenue and Albion Street.
A cause of the crash has not been officially determined.
But Bill Moland, president of the union that represents Sierra, told 7News that she told him she never should have been behind the wheel that day because four weeks earlier she suffered a “really bad fall” in which she “had injured her ankle and her wrist.”
Moland told the television reporter that Sierra said her health carrier told her to go back to work.
The union president said he saw Sierra’s injuries and believes her sore ankle may have caused her to hit the accelerator instead of the brake in the accident.
No one on the bus suffered serious injuries.
Sierra is scheduled to appear for arraignment June 7 in Denver County Court.
Staff writer Manny Gonzales can be reached at 303-820-1173 or mgonzales@denverpost.com.
Staff writer Jim Kirksey can be reached at 303-820-1448 or jkirksey@denverpost.com.
