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I don't have any bad memories associated with riding the bus to school. It was pleasant enough as far as I remember, and I rode it regularly until I graduated from high school.
There was one girl who was a middle schooler, maybe 8th grade, when I was a fifth grader. She was trying to intimidate my little sister and I verbally, and we were ignoring her, which set her off. I was reading, with my head down, and she grabbed a fistful of my waist-length hair, jerked it, snapped my head back, and punched me in the throat.
That same girl would be midforties, now, and is in prison, has been since her early twenties. She and her boyfriend beat their toddler so badly she was in a coma, and is wheelchair-bound with traumatic brain injury.
She's not the only bus bully on that route who ultimately went to prison for violent crime.
At age 17 the ringleader of my bus mob flew off an exit ramp while drunk, killing his passenger (one of his mob) and putting himself in a wheelchair for life. That finally humbled him a bit.
Never rode a school bus. Either I walked or for a few years in elementary school, I took a regular public transportation bus and was issued a bus pass. Since driver's licenses are not issued until the person turns 18 or 17 with driver's ed, only a few people in senior year drove to school, but there was no parking anyway and not very convenient.
It was OK in grade school. By junior high it got to be a drag, not because I disliked the bus ride itself but because of the psychopathic bullies who were on my route. And I don't mean "bullies" by today's definition who say mean things to or about you, I mean the kind who ganged up and beat the hell out of you for no other reason than they found it entertaining. Remove 3 or 4 select kids from the route and it would have been a much more tolerable experience. Heck, even the absence of the ringleader on days when he was sick or suspended or whatever made a major difference.
What bothered me the most at the time, and to this day as an adult, is the teachers and school system KNEW who the bullies were, and who the couple of ringleaders were, but did NOTHING. Even today I feel complete hatred toward those teachers who WATCHED what was going on and pretended not to see it.
The bullies on my bus/in my school system were repeatedly disciplined, suspended, etc. No real effect. The majority of them did not come from home environments conducive to cleaning up one's act, and there was no incentive not to get into trouble.
The bullies on my bus/in my school system were repeatedly disciplined, suspended, etc. No real effect. The majority of them did not come from home environments conducive to cleaning up one's act, and there was no incentive not to get into trouble.
My answer would be to remove them from the system. If they can't behave and can't or won't learn, then pack them up and put them somewhere that doesn't impact everyone else. Their "specialness" ends when it starts impacting others and the education of everyone else. We spend too much time and too much budget on the bottom percent. And we sacrifice our top performers to do it. Backwards. Just backwards.
I was a farm kid, and the bus assigned our route also picked up kids in a neighboring town whose school had closed and consolidated with ours. There were a lot of rough kids on the bus and there were often fights, some of them bad. We always had the most badass bus driver assigned, like a tough old Marine who was super intimidating. But it was still known as the hooligan bus. As a quiet, timid, bookish girl, at the time, I really hated it.
I rode it for years, though. From kindergarten until I had a license and access to a car.
This is exactly like my bus in high school for a couple of years, although our route covered only the country, not another town. We went through a couple of bus drivers that couldn't handle the ornery little s---ts, until.... until.... until we got Velma.
One fateful afternoon this tall, straight-standing black woman stepped into the bus with nary a word and started driving. She never talked or smiled and she had a very no-nonsense look about it. The bus got very quiet in a hurry and there was never trouble anymore. It was the darndest thing, and she probably deserved a lot more pay than what she got.
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Most of the time I did not mind the bus. I used it as social time with some kids that I didn't hang out in the school. It depended on the years and what I was going through. Hated it most in junior high, I think. Enjoyed it in grade school.
It is NOT a job that has gotten any better with time! While we have just confessed to unruly children in our busses "way back then", it hasn't changed and, worse, bus drivers cannot even raise their voices without getting punished for it.
There was one girl who was a middle schooler, maybe 8th grade, when I was a fifth grader. She was trying to intimidate my little sister and I verbally, and we were ignoring her, which set her off. I was reading, with my head down, and she grabbed a fistful of my waist-length hair, jerked it, snapped my head back, and punched me in the throat.
That same girl would be midforties, now, and is in prison, has been since her early twenties. She and her boyfriend beat their toddler so badly she was in a coma, and is wheelchair-bound with traumatic brain injury.
She's not the only bus bully on that route who ultimately went to prison for violent crime.
Wow! That's horrible all around! Question: If she were out and say tried to talk to you at a HS reunion or something what would you say?
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