CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. -- A group of parents in Clarksville is suing the school system, saying a bus driver terrorized their children for days before the school took action.

Parents said their children were so afraid of the driver they were afraid to tell their parents what happened.

"She said, 'But I was afraid he wasn't going to bring me home if I told,'" said parent Becky Tigart.

The driver is 64-year-old Michael Blevins. Three mothers said he terrorized their children for the first two weeks in September.

"I'll stand up for bus drivers any day, but that has nothing to do with assaulting a child," said parent Kathy Johnston.

Johnston said she called the school system Sept. 13 to file a complaint about what happened to her son. There is no record of her complaint made on the 13th, but there are complaints from the 15th and 16th, indicating the driver used force and a whistle to discipline students. A school official noted that the driver was told not to use a whistle or physically handle a child with force.

In a letter he wrote Sept. 16, Blevins said he blew a whistle to get everyone's attention, but at no time did he ever push, pull or shove a student.

"He was terminated three days after the call of complaint was called in, which was over two months ago, and so he has not been in our school system since then," said Elise Shelton, Chief Communications Officer of the Clarksville-Montgomery County School System.

Almost all buses in the Clarksville and Montgomery school systems have functioning cameras, but there's no video from the two-week period in which the allegations occurred.

Blevins had worked for the school system as a bus driver before in 2006. He also drove a childcare van for a private school in Clarksville and served for 20 years in the U.S. military.