St. Vrain Valley bus driver sentenced to jail for failing to report abuse of student

Nov. 17--A Boulder County jury of six people found a former St. Vrain Valley School District bus driver guilty of failing to report his bus assistant for spraying a severely autistic student in the face with disinfectant last summer.

But the jury found William "Bill" Hall not guilty of failing to report the bus assistant for kicking and hitting the student. Both are misdemeanors.

Hall, 46, was sentenced by Boulder County Judge Noel Blum to 60 days in jail after nearly seven hours of jury deliberations in the trial that started Tuesday.

His sentence also includes one year of probation and 100 hours of community service.

Deputy District Attorneys Raina Bayas and Jane Walsh alleged that Hall turned a blind eye to the mistreatment of student Shiva Rai, who was 20 at the time.

They said that Hall -- who was trained in mandatory reporting and driving students with disabilities -- was supposed to stand up for Rai when Monica Burke hit, kicked and sprayed him in the face with disinfectant.

"Nine feet away from where the defendant was sitting, day after day after day, he observed Shiva being abused," Bayas said.

She said that a teacher reported suspicions of abuse on Aug. 22, 2016, after hearing a commotion on the bus once. She questioned how it was possible that Hall didn't hear Burke hitting Rai, and didn't hear Rai yelling in pain.

The abuse was captured over seven days last August by a surveillance video on the bus that transported at least three other autistic students to specialized schools in Denver. Clips were shown in court during the trial.

"Not once did he look up when she kicked him?" Bayas said. "That's unbelievable."

Yet the defense argued that Hall was focused on driving the bus from Longmont to different specialized schools in Denver.

Denver attorney Charles Kaiser countered that Hall did intervene when Burke threw Rai's backpack, which he knew was holding a tablet.

Kaiser said that Hall's supervisors, as well as a parent on the bus during a ride, also didn't speak up earlier. He said Hall didn't ignore abuse -- he simply didn't know what was going on.

"While he feels bad about it, he certainly didn't act willfully," Kaiser said.

Burke, 52, was sentenced in August to 20 months in Boulder County Jail after she pleaded guilty to second-degree assault of an at-risk person and third-degree assault.

The St. Vrain Valley School District announced then that it had agreed to pay nearly $4 million as compensation in a settlement with Rai's family.

Amelia Arvesen: 303-684-5212, arvesena@times-call.com or twitter.com/ameliaarvesen

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