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Apparently this happened a month ago and we're just hearing about it now. That 12 year old and her 9 year old brother should never be allowed on that bus again. Bus driver needs retraining or fired. He should not have continued driving while she got beaten up for 45 minutes!
The girl, whose name is not being released, has reportedly been suspended from school after she was accused of five juvenile counts for her actions. The accused’s 9-year-old brother was also involved but is autistic and was reportedly moved to a special ed bus and classroom.
She said she’s learned that the instigators had been bullying her daughter to varying degrees for some time, stepping on her book bag and at one time tossing the bag to the back of the bus.
Corley said she’s waiting to see the bus video of the Dec. 4 incident. She said she thinks the bus driver should be removed because he allowed it to happen.
The abuse lasted for the entire duration of the 45-minute bus ride, mom-of-one was told by an investigator who reviews surveillance video
The assault on Corley's daughter was captured on the school bus's surveillance camera, and the mother said she was told by the lead investigator on the case who reviewed the footage that the 45-minute ride home was 'complete terror and torture' for her little girl.
If I was the mother of the five year old I would sue the snot out of the school system and the bus driver personally and yes it can be done . Then use that money to send her child to a private school or catholic school . those private schools have more of a say with parents than do public schools . I do believe it takes hitting someone in the wallet to make them do the right thing .
I think there is a lot of confusion about how issues like this are handled or legally able to be handled by school districts. You can try to sue the school and just waste all your time and possibly money. Kids fight, it happens. A judge isn't going to bankrupt a school every time a fight happens or a kid gets bullied.
You'd have to prove that no action was taken, despite school officials being fully aware of what was going on. Was the bus driver fully aware of what was going on and took no action regarding the behavior of the 12 year old? That's already contradicted by the mom's statement. Did the district take no action despite being informed and aware of what happened on the bus? It says she was suspended pending further action, so that would also seem like a no.
You'd get further by suing the parents of the 12 year old.
The main issue right now is we have one person's side of the story and that's someone who wasn't even on the bus. It's like the telephone game. If the 12-year old was suspended for 10 days so swiftly, I doubt she is special needs to the point it would have any impact on her actions on the bus.
I have seen bus video before and have witnessed all out craziness on the part of kids who claimed they were being bullied. We had something similar in that an 8 year old had pushed a 5 year old. There were no bruises or anything, just the 5 year old telling his mom he got pushed. So mom comes up to the school and says he's getting bullied by an older kid and she's terrified over the safety of her child and if nothing gets done she's going to the police, get a lawyer, etc. So I watch the video, and it turns out, while they were waiting to exit the bus, the 5 year old turns around and bites the 8 year old on the arm. The 8 year old pushed the 5 year old off of him. The 8 year old never reported it, never said anything to anyone.
I had another kid who claimed to his mom that someone on the bus bullied them and left a scratch on them. Mom comes in furious the next morning. After a little investigating, the scratch happened after the kids got off the bus. While at home the older brother accidentally scratched him playing basketball before mom came home from work. Perfect time to go after the alleged "bully." Those are just two examples, but almost every case I have dealt with was similar. Once in a great while would you actually find a student who was totally innocent and hadn't done anything prior to the incident. In many cases, the parents went over the top (threatening to sue the school, calling police, tracking down the bully themselves) before allowing the school to do any investigating themselves and they were always 100% sure their sweet angel was the victim of bullying.
In regards to the punishment the 12 year old can face. Many states are the same, but I'm most familiar with Texas law code. The school can withdraw bus services, this is not a right that has to be provided. In fact, if a student was assigned to alternative school, the parents were required to provide transportation, the student was automatically banned from bus services during that time. Education is a right and cannot be withdrawn. I'm not exactly sure what the 10 day suspension is from, the bus or school? Legally, in Texas you could only withhold education from a child (out of school suspension) for 3 days. From there, you'd have to decide what you were going to do with the child, either alternative school, in school suspension, or just letting them come back.
Police charges have to be filed by the parents, the school can only apply consequences related to school. Charges being filed don't really mean diddly squat. It just means the mom called police, put in a report, and said she wanted to file charges. What happens in almost all cases I have dealt with is that judges have only punished the student if there were no aggravating circumstances and the victim was actually innocent. The punishment is typically community service, nothing extravagant.
Bus monitors are great, and I wish I could have had bus monitors on all of our buses. The issue wasn't even money, as they made very little. At most, it's 2 hours of work at $10/hour. If you have 10 buses, you are paying $200 per day for 172 days and shelling out $34,400. That's if you only have afternoon monitoring, double it if you want mornings covered. Even that wasn't really the issue though. The main problem was finding someone who was willing to ride the bus everyday for 2 hours, make $20 daily, manage 60 kids in a tightly packed space, deal with some of the most disruptive kids in the school, and do a decent job. Teachers were involved with dismissal, so they couldn't do it. Many of the paraprofessionals schedules wouldn't allow them to be a bus monitor as well, so it was really slim pickings. Parents certainly weren't jumping up to volunteer.
I love all the solutions and "what I would do" advice, but until you are responsible for a fleet of buses and thousands of kids getting home safely, while making sure you follow every letter of the law, apply due process, and face financial, personnel, and time constraints, you really have no idea of some of the challenges. Keep in mind that bus incidents make up only a very tiny portion of the responsibility of a school administrator.
Status:
"I don't understand. But I don't care, so it works out."
(set 5 days ago)
35,620 posts, read 17,953,728 times
Reputation: 50641
Quote:
Originally Posted by middle-aged mom
I don’t think it possible for a district to refuse to bus a student who acts out this like this.
I have read occasional stories about districts using taxi cabs to transport unruly students, especially when transferred to an alternative school, due to chronic behavior problems.
We’ll never know the full story on this one.
This happens all the time. Students get a 3 day suspension, 10 day, or are banned from bus service for the remainder of a year.
And it's interesting. Once you inconvenience the parents to that degree, they do some how find a way to get their kids to behave on the bus.
There was a policy in our district for truancy, where the parent had to serve detention along with the student. Parents who had stated they had no control over their kids somehow found a way to keep them from being truant again.
Punish the parent, and you can get remarkably good behavior out of the child. Hm. Whoda thought.
Drivers can't always see activity between the seats and can't tell real distress from typical hooting and hollering.
A 12yo beating up a 5yo is just sick. I strongly suspect that the missing material here is that the 12yo is special needs or has known issues, which just makes it worse.
If I were the parent of the five year I wouldn't give a **** if the 12 year old had "issues." I'd press charges. Period.
Where were all the other kids who should have come to that girl's rescue? In my school bus days, an attack like that would have been put down instantly, by several other riders.
I think it depends how old the other kids are. I certainly wouldn't have interfered as a kid except to yell for someone to help, and I can't say other kids would have. We had bullies in my school, no one went up against them to keep them from bullying other kids. It was much worse than today, because back then even the school didn't take it seriously. This was late 60's through 1980.
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