bus driver pulls child to the ground

I didn't watch it (I might tomorrow when I have more time for it to load). . .but my grandpa was fired from driving the school bus for some kind of inappropriate behavior with a kid (I never got the entire story). He should never have been hired; he was abusive with his own kids, but of course nothing was legally done about it so nothing came up when they ran the background check. Anyway, I'm sure it happens more often than we'd care to think.

I think the man should never have been allowed to be a school bus driver, or allowed to have kids for that matter, it seems like he doesn't know how to deal with children.
And, I do understand his frustration, he is responsible for these kids and if they misbehave and something bad happens to them, it will be his fault- but I don't see how that justifies his behavior- it's his job to make them behave without inflicting abuse

Wow! He's in the wrong business! He is definitely frustrated at having to drive around a bus full of loud kids!

I'm wondering why there are no other adults on the bus to supervise the children? Having the kids roaming around and standing up is dangerous, and he can't be supervising their activity while he's driving, because that's more dangerous than having them roaming around and standing up!

I can't watch the video from here, but I can tell you that as a kid we were EXTREMELY abusive to our bus driver in Alabama when I went to my "ghetto" school, and we even made the older lady cry which had everyone laughing when she had an emotional breakdown. Although it seemed hilarious to everyone at the time, I don't think most kids realize how cruel it is until after, as the bus driver isn't really perceived as a person but a thing.

Fact is, all kids now know that the bus driver has absolutely ZERO power and is the only adult most know that you can abuse with no repercussions.

Personally, I think bus drivers should be allowed to kick kids off the bus at a whim, and the bus ride considered privilege. When kids then are forced to take public bus system (as is the norm in Europe) or their parents have to drive them, then they would have discipline enforced by parents.

Speaking as a mum I do not condone his behaviour at all, if the child was causing a disruption, he should have simply told her and then reported her for disruptive behaviour. I know its dangerous for people to distract the driver but whilst he was manhandling her he took his eyes off the road for quite a while-extremely dangerous. If that was my child I think I would have not been able to control myself. x

A bus full of six year olds could drive ANYONE to distraction! No pun intended. That said, he should not have laid a hand on any of those kids. Pull over, contact the school. Something. And yes, there should probably be a monitor of some sort on the buses.

And many kids are not raised to be polite, listen to adults, sit down when they are told. Etc. They are spoiled, indulged brats whose parents tell them all the time that the world revolves around them. Small child, small problem. Big child .... BIG problem.

I know I'll probably be jumped on for my opinion on this, BUT......

First of all we have NO idea what went on with some of the kids or the little girl. Was she one that continued to disrespect and not listen when told to sit down when the bus was moving? Did she do this in the past? Had she had notes sent for her actions?

You are just looking at ONE part of the picture - not the entire story. However IMO the bus driver was not to blame entirely for what he did. Sounds to me like the child was one that didn't do as she was told more then once. A bus driver is responsible for the kids not being hurt on the bus.

Had the child been in the seat and not standing up (notice how a lot of kids are moving around and standing up) and the bus driver had to stop quickly, the child would have been hurt.

When I rode a bus to school you were to sit in your seat at all times until the bus stopped. Half of those kids obviously have NO respect for the driver and I'm sure are disruptive in school too with no respect for teachers or adults.

This goes back to the home - had the parents taught the kids you listen to a teacher, bus driver, etc and do as told this never would happen. We don't know the entire story, but its not fair to condem the driver for his actions.

I haven't looked at the video. But from what was posted, it sounds like children were allowed to misbehave on the bus. I'm a teacher. In my school district this is punished promptly. It is a safety issue, and if it is not dealt with when a small issue, it becomes a big issue. When the children know they can't get away with such behavior, that the consequences will be unpleasant for them, then they don't do it. So the school administration is at fault here too, as well as the parents. Bus driver, too, probably, though we don't know the whole story.

School districts in the U.S. are in SEVERE financial crisis in most places. Another adult on the bus, is not realistic in these times. Actually, busing students to school as we know it is probably going to change a lot soon. Districts and states can't afford it. Parents will have to make other arrangements. More children will probably be walking to school and walking farther. A town nearby just announced that they will no longer provide crossing guards for the children going to school. They say they can't afford it. They say it is the school district's responsibility. So there is something else the schools can't afford.

Robin

From how I remember the school bus, I'm more surprised by the fact that it was a girl in the front row acting up. I remember at least the first two rows were always the quiet kids who just wanted to get home so they planted themselves in their seats, while the disruptive kids were in the back so they could do whatever they wanted.

I think the bus driver was painted into a corner. I don't care how irrational you are, your opening move isn't going to be to grab a young girl and drag her to the ground. He probably yelled at her 5 or 6 times during that bus ride before resorting to that. It can be scary, if you know that little girl is putting herself in danger without a care in the world and she refuses to listen when you verbally warn her about it.

To me, it's like someone standing in the middle of the street and refusing to listen when you tell them a car is coming. You're going to instinctually pull them out of the way even if you have to be a little rough in the process, right? I know, it's not the same urgency at all, but some people go into panic mode easily when they are already frustrated and I can see how in the heat of the moment his anger and panic got the better of him.

Now, all of that being said, I do not think he should have laid a hand on that little girl. Almost paramount to keeping her physically safe is to provide a healthy trusting environment for the kids and especially the parents that leave those children in your care. Oh, and he could have pulled the bus over to the side of the road for 10 - 15 minutes like my bus drivers did when the kids in back were being especially bad. That worked well, as nobody wanted to be stuck on a bus for an extra 15 minutes.

I've watched it now. The bus driver was wrong to do that. The district put him on leave, he then resigned and apologized. Staff should never touch a child unless it is to prevent them from hurting themselves or others.

Actually, I think the other children were behaving pretty typically. No sound makes it difficult to know what what going on that set the guy off. It's a terribly difficult job, and unbelievably stressful, to be a school bus driver. Really have to keep your cool. He didn't.

Children as young as kindergarten can be extremely defiant, and out of control. You'd be surprised. However, all she seemed to be doing was sitting up in the seat on her knees. Clearly a safety concern, but he should not have reacted the way he did. And he knew he was being taped, which is all the more reason to think he was losing it. It's a good thing he quit.

Robin

Are you saying that 6 year olds cannot be brats? I did not watch the video either but as a parent myself, I'm very much aware of how bratty some kids are and mine was no exception.

I wonder what would have happened if the driver had to put on the brakes quickly and the child hit the windshield of the bus. I guess the parents would have been pretty upset with the driver.

It had sound when I watched it. . .the bus driver was yelling at the kids a lot.

That guy is a loose cannon. The kids weren't doing anything really (I've been on school buses; that was nothing!), they were just wiggling around a lot. It's not like they were running up and down the aisles. If he wanted the kids to be able to sit all the way on the seat he shouldn't have let 3 little girls sit in a seat made for 2 kids.

And let's not fool ourselves---school buses are NOT safe. If he hit the brakes hard it wouldn't matter if the kids were sitting still or not; every kid on the aisle would be thrown into the aisle and every kid in the window seat would be thrown into the seat in front of them.

Good thing he resigned. He needs to get a job with no kids involved and no frustrating older people either (the drivers of the local senior bus can get quite impatient and abusive with the slow older folks).

School buses are made to support three young elementary school children per seat. That changes to two per seat in middle school and high school. The year our school had to cut back on buses, there were the maximum number of children per bus. 13 rows of 2 seats each times 3 per seat is 78 (ok, 76 because of that weird half-seat in the back) which is what the article said that bus can and does handle. The driver said his bus had an unusually high number of children being near the maximum, but it's still within safety guidelines.

Also, it's hard to tell what those kids were doing. We get 5 seconds of footage before he freaks out. For all we know, the previous 20 minutes of footage could have shown that little girl running around the aisle like an animal. The way the girl is looking at the driver before she turns around tells me she had been yelled at already and was finding an opportunity when he wasn't looking to run in the aisle again.

Seriously, watch that little girl from the very beginning and tell me she isn't watching the driver and waiting for him to look at the road before standing up and walking in the aisle.

Oh, absolutely! I don't agree with what he did at all. I have been putting it into a context for the people who are saying they don't see how he could do that. I can see how someone could get that frustrated, BUT there is a different set of standards when you are essentially the caretaker of seventy small children for an hour every day.

IMHO the most unsafe things on that bus are the bus itself and the Driver, who obviously needs some serious anger management classes.
The argument that if she is not sitting down when a crash occurs will put her in harms ways... Well... IMHO... it won't matter on those buses. In a crash all those kids will fly away like popcorn in a hot pan. It is beyond me how these buses do not have seat-belts. I understand Pre-k are 3 kids per seat, high-schoolers are 2 per.... Then put a long seat belt per seat, but put one for goodness sakes!
Then you have an angry driver, yelling, looking towards the back as he drives... Road rage is dangerous... When you are angry you tend to drive faster, make sharper turns, drive carelessly. You put a driver doing that with 40-something kids aboard... It can be disastrous.
Then, there is the issue of a grown man shoving your kid to the floor. I am sorry, but nobody, nobody has the right to do that. When you put your kid in a school bus, you expect to be safe and be treated with respect. And it simply should be no other way.
This guy has no business being anywhere close to a school bus IMHO.

Kid shouldn't be touched period, not a hair.

I was just saying that bus drivers are powerless, and the power they should have is that if your kid acts up, the bus driver should be able to assign seats and move them to a special "dunce" section in the front (make em wear an appropriate "make fun of me" hat too IMO) of the bus which would remove them from their friends and subject them to ridicule from their peers as a deterrent, and ultimately kick them off the bus for a week at a time at his discretion if they refuse or still act up, which would force the kid to ride a bicycle, take a public bus, or have a parent or older sibling have to drive them for which the inconvenience would again be a deterrent.

But to slam a kid or whatever, no way, just saying that bus driver's are people and all people with a shred of self-respect (self included) have a point where ANYONE will snap and if the system is in place that promotes this, it is as much to blame as the driver that was pushed too far.

But I agree too, there are people that have too low a threshold and shouldn't have that job.... which likely includes most of us here on this forum. I'd be good for 6 months before needing to resort to stress tools or sedatives heh!

I agree with all this. It is a terribly difficult job. I couldn't do it at all, and I'm a special education teacher who works with a lot of very difficult behaviors in children.

It's a low paying job, and they get no respect. In this economy, there are going to be people taking the job that otherwise wouldn't, but they need to. Some of them shouldn't do this job. The guy would have been fired if he hadn't quit. I don't know if there is a case for prosecution.

The seat belt discussion with school buses is a never ending debate. The studies I've read say that seat belts won't improve safety. And then there is the issue of just who is going to make the kids put on the seat belts, and put them on correctly. The bus drivers won't be able to.

Bad school bus drivers are around, and always have been. Recently there was one is suburban Chicago, a woman, who drove the bus, with kids, drunk. She was fired (or she quit) and she was prosecuted. Then there are the cases of kids, usually mentally handicapped, that are molested by bus drivers. There is one of those every year or two. And then there are the cases when a kid (usually a very young child, or mentally handicapped) gets left on the bus - maybe because they took a nap.

It's a problem. Considering how many buses there are (my school has 32 coming and going a day), the low pay, few and split up hours, and lack of benefits, it's amazing anyone will do it. It's a miserable job.


Robin