A former Littleton Public Schools bus aide who was caught abusing children on camera in 2024 was sentenced Wednesday to four-and-a-half years in prison, according to court records.
Kiarra Jones, a former paraprofessional for the school district, was eligible for a probation-only sentence, . Prosecutors argued for time in the Colorado Department of Corrections, and Arapahoe County District Court Judge Laqunya Baker-McKay agreed, according to the office.
Jones pleaded guilty in January to 10 counts of third-degree assault of an at-risk child, a felony, and two counts of misdemeanor child abuse, court records show. The plea deal, which dropped a felony count of child abuse from her case, was called “bittersweet” by the victims’ disappointed parents.
The three children hurt by Jones were students at the Joshua School in Englewood, which serves students on the autism spectrum. The Littleton Public Schools transportation department is contracted to bus students to the private school.
Jones was fired on March 19, 2024, after school district officials reviewed the recording of the previous day’s bus ride. That video showed Jones punching and elbowing a nonverbal boy with severe autism, who had been sitting calmly before the unprovoked assault.
Other videos slowly surfaced, but were not made public, of Jones assaulting other children on the bus, attorney Ciara Anderson of Rathod Mohamedbhai LLC previously told The Denver Post.
Anderson and her colleague, Qusair Mohamedbhai, are two attorneys representing the families in a civil lawsuit filed against the school, its leadership team and a teacher.
