Ex-school bus monitor found guilty of striking Naperville student

July 25--A 69-year-old Bolingbrook woman on Tuesday was found guilty of misdemeanor battery for striking a Naperville boy while she served as a school bus monitor last year.

Judge James Orel found Joyce Jones guilty at the end of a bench trial in DuPage County court.

Jones will be sentenced in August.

The boy's mother testified Monday on the trial's first day that her autistic son remains "traumatized" after being struck last year by the monitor.

Prosecutors said Jones hit or slapped the third-grader on several occasions between February and April 2016.

"I don't think he'll ever take the bus again," the child's mother said.

The boy, then 9, rode a small school bus home from his Indian Prairie District 204 school, usually with only one other special needs student, the driver and Joyce. The mother testified that she asked to have a monitor aboard because her son tended to put things in his mouth, and she worried that a driver alone would not be able to adequately monitor him.

After the child was upset on April 6, 2016, the mother contacted the school, which obtained the security footage taken aboard the bus. The child has limited speech ability and could not describe what was happening, his mother said.

Earlier Monday, DuPage County prosecutors played videotapes captured by the security cameras, though the monitor was angled so that only the audio portion could be heard in the court gallery.

On the tape, the child could be heard quite loudly at times on the tapes, including cursing Jones during the April incident. At one point, the bus driver can be heard calling the boy "a little monster" and threatening to throw him out the bus window.

"Bite me and I'll bite you back," Jones could be heard saying to the child.

Naperville police Detective Ron Leon said he interviewed Jones about a month later and said she admitted hitting or slapping the child in the mouth after she said he spat on her. Jones, the detective said, expressed regret over the incident.

The bus driver later pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct for his comment to the child. Both he and Jones were fired by the contractor.

Check back later for updated information.

Clifford Ward is a freelance reporter.

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