Bus Driver Resigns After Girl Is Molested On Bus

CBS4 ^ | Oct 27, 2006 | Evan Bacon

[wintertime]

(CBS4) HOLLYWOOD Last month, several boys were arrested for assaulting and sexually molesting another student aboard their bus ride home in Hollywood, but what might shock you was the reaction from the school bus driver.

The assault took place in September, when a 14-year-old girl was being transported from Lanier-James Education Center in Hallandale Beach. Four teenage boys on the bus allegedly rubbed up against her, while some held her down to silence her. The incident was caught on the bus' surveillance video system.

The bus driver allegedly did not do a thing about the matter. (snip)

The school board is implementing a policy to dictate how drivers should react to attacks on a bus.

[TNdandelion]

I agree with you that more than one adult should be on the bus. However, the use of seatbelts on a school bus is unnecessary and actually presents a safety hazard if each child isn't properly restrained and assisted in the event of a crash. The buses themselves are designed to keep the force of most impacts underneath the children (bus sits up high) and the high back seats provide protection for the children in the event of an impact. Unfortunately, those high seats also hide their actions from a single bus driver.

[wintertime]

It's not the school officials who are ultimately responsible for putting these children into unsafe situations...it's the parents.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I certainly agree that parents should do everything possible to remove their children from government schools.

My point is that, we as a society expect more from parents than our schools. Why do we have this double standard? Why do we excuse the principals, teachers, and superintendents, when parents, who allowed the same conditions, would be under social worker investigation?

[RavenATB]

"My point is that, we as a society expect more from parents than our schools. Why do we have this double standard?"

Double standard? Parents are parents, and school officials are school officials. It's not a double standard when you have different expectations for individuals from two greatly different groups.

Our expectations of parents cannot be too high. Our expectations of public school officials will always tend to be high than their performance. They have a different level of interest in children...which should be intuitively obvious.

[Syncro]

We recently had a bus driver get reprimanded for trying to break up a fight

I got removed from a volunteer position for stopping a bigger guy from beating up a smaller one. The littler guy was on the floor and the big guy was twisting his arm grotesquely.

They told me to not ever do that again. I said in the same situation I would do the same thing. Bye bye to me.

The year before I was honored as Volunteer of the Year.

When I drove a school bus, nothing got by me. If there was a problem, I would stop the bus until the kids straightened out.

[TNdandelion]

That is a shame. You were penalized for trying to protect someone. IMO, the children/thugs know this is the policy and the consequences are so small/light, it's practically worth the trouble. :(

[Mamzelle]

Lose-lose. Try to stop kids from fighting, and end up getting sued.

A school bus is a huge liability and security risk--one answer is to have a zero-tolerance for any disrupters, and make the parents drive their kids. Put two adults in every bus. Or, maybe, just stop offereing bus service, period. In my town, it's mostly the English as a Second Language kids who ride the buses, anyway.