Three Cactus High School students were taken to a hospital Sunday, Sept. 13, after the air conditioning stopped working on a charter bus carrying JROTC students home from northern Arizona, according to the Peoria Unified School District.
Several students reported feeling unwell as the bus approached the Glendale campus, the district told Arizona’s Family, which first reported the incident. First responders met the bus at the school and evaluated the students. Three were transported to a hospital, and district officials said all three were expected to make a full recovery.
The district did not identify the students. It also did not publicly specify how long the air conditioning was out, the bus company involved, the students’ diagnoses or where in northern Arizona the group had traveled.
District says investigation and protocol review are planned
Danielle Airey, a Peoria Unified spokesperson, told Arizona’s Family that student safety remained the district’s highest priority. District officials said they were taking the incident seriously and would conduct a full investigation into the circumstances.
The district also plans to review emergency protocols for student travel. That review is the next publicly identified step. No timetable for completing the investigation was announced.
The distinction between the charter bus and the district’s regular route buses matters. The district described the vehicle as a charter bus used for the JROTC trip, but the information released Sunday did not say who owned or operated it. The event therefore does not establish a problem with Peoria Unified’s regular school-bus fleet.
Cactus High serves grades 7 through 12
Cactus High School is at 6330 W. Greenway Road in Glendale and is part of Peoria Unified. The campus serves grades 7 through 12 and lists Air Force JROTC among its programs.
The students were returning from a weekend trip when the cooling failure occurred. The district’s account did not say whether the group changed vehicles or whether mechanical help was requested before the bus reached campus.
Those details, along with the duration of the cooling failure and any changes to travel procedures, remain unresolved. West Valley Post will update this report if Peoria Unified releases the investigation’s findings or announces changes to its student-travel rules.
Featured image: Representative archival photograph of a charter coach. It does not show the bus involved in the Cactus High School incident. Photo by Dom Darbyshire via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
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