Posted on 07/16/2012 5:48:37 AM PDT by wintertime
School buses serve as a setting for as much as 10% of all bullying incidents in the country, according to the data collected by the U.S. Department of Education. The reality, however, could be much worse, since as many as two-thirds of all bullying incidents that take place in the U.S. schools are never reported. A recent article on Slate.com explained that limited space and lack of adequate supervision make school bus bullying notoriously hard to control and reduce.
Jeremy Stahl, writing at Slate.com, said that he polled his colleagues about their own and their kids’ experiences and many recalled incidents that took place on a school bus as the worst cases of bullying they had ever experienced. One even said that school bus harassment was so prevalent at his school that his mother, a teacher, arranged for him to carpool at the beginning and the end of the day to protect him from the abuse.
The research backs up these anecdotes. A 2005 study from the Journal of School Violence reported that two incidents of bullying occurred for every bus ride they monitored. According to a 2007 report by the National Center for Education Statistics, middle school students are most likely to be bullied on a bus. This is also the same age that students are also most likely to be injured by bullying. What is it about buses that make them such an ideal venue for this kind of behavior?
(Excerpt) Read more at educationnews.org ...
1) There are 17,000 emergency room admissions due to school bus injuries every year. ( Do a Google search on the words: "School bus injury emergency room")
2) School buses are top heavy and subject to roll over. There are usually no escape hatches on the roofs and this complicates rescue.
3) When school buses do roll over children tumble from their seats causing impact injury to themselves and crushing other children.
4) We do NOT know if children are safer when riding to and from school ( specifically) in a properly secured safety seat with the parent driving. These studies have **never** been done!
5) A very sad injury that could be completely prevented with adult supervision are crushing and dragging injuries. On occasion a child's clothing or back pack strap will get caught in the school bus door and these children are dragged by their buses. The other injury occurs when a child drops an item in front of the bus, leans over to pick it up, and the bus driver ( thinking they have cleared the bus) starts the bus and crushes the child. This happened twice in my county within two years and in both cases the child was killed instantly.
5) Social environment: There is sexual, physical, and emotional bullying on buses. Anecdotally, my daughter learned the "F" word on her kindergarten bus.
You know, I really don’t care.
Then why bother reading the article or posting?
It was good for me to get bullied in middle school. Inspired me to work out and learn self defense. I was on the boxing team in military school. Being bullied taught me that life isn’t always fair. I must admit, I still have a desire to kick his ass 40 years later. Actually, it was 2 guys.
They should appoint the toughest guys on each bus to be “monitors”.
Maybe some people who are collecting unemployment should be told to ride school buses as a condition for continuing to receive checks. Not a paid posiiton — just an expectation from the Unemployment Office.
Speaking of bullying, you’re a bully when it comes to public schools.
“Another reason to homeschool.”
Yea, someone was keeping count. I think he was in the 400s the last time that I checked.
I agree.
Simple cure:
Video the passengers—It’ll give the BULLYING evidence you need.
Kick off the bad ones—let ‘em walk.
Problem: SOLVED.
They usually appoint themselves........
The government is only concerned when gay sissies get bullied about being gay.
Thnx for this...good topic.
I never let my kid go on a public school bus after, on his first day as a first grader, he was asked at the end of the day, what bus he was on so he pointed to one and they promptly put him on it. It was the wrong bus. He didn’t get off with the other kids in our neighborhood so when I freaked and called the school, the vice principal said, “oh well, he’ll just ride it and come back here.”
I had my lawyer on speed dial...and put him in a Catholic school the next year with parents doing the car pool.
Unbelievable.
I rode a school bus to and from school, 1950s-1960s, until I was 17. There was never any of this going on, even though for part of the ride there was standing room only.
What is the difference today? Simple fact is the majority of today’s children simply are not taught how to conduct themselves in a respectful and respectable manner.
Same here. There was no bullying, but a lot of horsing around. I got a chipped tooth when another kid yanked me forward by my coat, and my mouth hit the back of the seat in front of me.
Agreed. It's the parents' fault. No way around it. Can't blame the schools or the government. It falls back onto the parents.
Where to begin?
Eliminate the tyrannical, inconsiderate, bullying rule of the school buses clogging the roads all day, every day now.
Eliminate the neurotically overprotective parents who can’t just let the kids wait and quickly board by themselves.
Eliminate all taxes on folks like me for other people’s kids and their non-education.
Let the kids walk.
Let the kids handle the so-called bullying epidemic by teaching them a few quickly-incapacitating tactics.
Have more kids, and then just let natural selection sort out who’s scrappy enough to make it.
If you’re waiting for a sarcasm tag, you’ll be disappointed.
We saw what happened recently with the adult bus monitor. She was bullied mercilessly by the kids.
Unfortunately, in today’s politically correct world, she wasn’t allowed to say or do anything against those kids.
Back in my day, there was no such job as a bus monitor. But it seems that such a job is useless, since monitors aren’t allowed to discipline the kids.
The bullies would receive same. Nothing changes.
“Have more kids, and then just let natural selection sort out who’s scrappy enough to make it.”
Survival of the fittest. Just what we need, more abused children, more child suicides, more murders by bullies and their ‘gang.’ No adult intervention.
Or are you not saying that?
And you are a “shrink?”
Interesting.
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