A Staten Island bus driver whom the Department of Education said it permanently banned in 2006 from working with schoolkids because of his “inhuman” taunting of an autistic boy is back driving disabled students, The Post has learned.
Robert Fischetti whose heartless heckling of 8-year-old P.J. Rossi spurred a 2007 law mandating improved training of school-bus staffers who deal with the disabled is back to picking up schoolkids in his Atlantic Express bus.
P.J.’s mom, Lisa Rossi, is furious.
“The fact that this man was rehired to drive children is absolute disgraceful,” she said.
A spokeswoman for Atlantic Express confirmed Fischetti was back at work.
“I’ve been absolved by the DOE and by my company,” Fischetti, a 59-year-old grandfather, told The Post yesterday. “Ask anybody in the neighborhood. I would never hurt a kid.”
Fischetti’s certification was revoked Jan. 11, 2006. In October 2007, it was reduced, per an “agreement,” to a 180-day suspension, a DOE spokeswoman said.
The DOE said it could not immediately access Fischetti’s records yesterday for details.
When The Post exposed the taunting incident in February 2006, a DOE spokeswoman called the conduct of Fischetti and bus matron Connie Clark “inhuman” and said they were permanently banned from working with kids.
The shocking verbal abuse of P.J. who cannot speak was captured on a tape recorder that Lisa Rossi hid in his knapsack on Sept. 30, 2005.
That morning, P.J. boarded the bus and soon began banging his head against a seat 80 times over the 90-minute ride and howling in pain.
“Shut up, shut up, shut up, you little dog!” said Clark.
Fischetti said, “Good one!” after P.J. banged his head one time, called him a “phony . . . sack of s- – -” and teasingly offered him cookies and cupcakes.
The Rossis are suing the DOE, Atlantic and Fischetti.
In 2007, then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer signed “P.J.’s Law,” requiring twice-a-year training for school-bus staffers working with disabled kids.
Additional reporting by Yoav Gonen, C.J. Sullivan and Alex Ginsberg