A wrongful death lawsuit filed this week in Cook County Circuit Court reveals a series of documented failures by two Illinois school districts in the months and hours leading up to the death of Jenna Menias, a 6-year-old second grader struck and killed by her school bus on Sept. 8, 2026.
The complaint, filed by Corboy & Demetrio on behalf of the Menias family, names Lincoln-Way Community High School District 210 and Frankfort School District 157-C as defendants. The filing documents a parent's repeated safety concerns being dismissed, an inexperienced substitute driver assigned to an unfamiliar route, and internal communications suggesting the districts were operating under severe staffing constraints that day.
Jenna was dropped off alone, hundreds of feet from her home on a road without sidewalks or a marked crosswalk. Her mother had raised these exact concerns with District 157-C weeks before the incident. When she requested a safer drop-off location, the district denied her request via email—the same district that had similarly rejected an identical request from her in 2022 regarding her son's transportation.
On the morning of Sept. 8, the bus was operated by a substitute driver employed by District 210. According to police reports cited in the lawsuit, the driver had recently obtained his school bus license and had never driven that particular route before. Hours before Jenna died, an internal email from District 210's Director of Transportation stated the department was dealing with "a lot of late call offs from drivers" and that staffing shortages were making "a challenging day—worse."
Onboard video footage obtained by the law firm shows Jenna already off the bus and visible in front of it when the driver proceeded forward without checking his exterior mirrors or looking out the front windshield. The footage also shows the driver operating the bus while looking down at a piece of paper in his right hand.
"Safeguard, upon safeguard, upon safeguard were consciously disregarded," Daniel S. Kirschner, the partner representing the Menias family estate, said in a statement. He emphasized that the failures occurred both in real time by the driver and systemically by the two districts.
The lawsuit documents that the districts had specific knowledge of the unsafe drop-off procedures through direct parental communication, had documentation of staffing pressures, and chose to deploy an inexperienced, unfamiliar driver on a route they knew presented safety concerns.
The lawsuit was filed Sept. 22, 2026, in Cook County Circuit Court under case number 2026L011354. Kirschner said the action serves to obtain answers about how these decisions were made, hold the responsible institutions accountable and prevent similar tragedies.
The districts have not yet responded to the lawsuit.
