DUVAL COUNTY, Fla. – A San Pablo Elementary School parent took to the podium at Tuesday’s Duval County School Board meeting to praise a kindergarten teacher who helped children escape last Thursday’s school bus crash near the Jacksonville Zoo.
Mandy Rubin, whose son was among the roughly 30 kindergarteners on board the bus when a semi-truck rear-ended it on Zoo Parkway, called out teacher Franz Lerch by name — crediting him with keeping her son calm and cutting him free from his seat during the chaotic moments after the crash.
“Mr. Lerch, in an extreme moment of crisis, was calm and collected, keeping my child calm while he worked to cut him loose from his seat,” Rubin said…