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news
Top Member
Canada
2951 Posts |
 Posted - 04/20/2006 : 7:56:28 PM
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Thu, Apr. 20, 2006 - Macon Telegraph, GA - Bibb County school bus drivers who showed up at a Thursday night school board meeting asked school officials to hire more bus monitors to help with unruly students and bump up bus monitor pay to retain them.
click for story
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JK
Top Member
USA
7307 Posts |
Posted - 04/20/2006 : 8:50:07 PM
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This story is one of the most lackadaisical stories I've read on school bus violence. Would make one wonder if the paper was forced to write it at gun point? And did so begrudgingly with the message - we just don't care about this issue. (jk)
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There is no school bus driver shortage!
Properly train, effective support and pay that retains.
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Edited by - JK on 04/20/2006 8:51:50 PM |
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william
Top Member
USA
1912 Posts |
Posted - 04/21/2006 : 09:01:07 AM
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| I absolutely agree, JK. This article has no urgency or understanding of the gravity of this situation. These administrators are spineless, putting money above good order and discipline, and I'm sure blaming the drivers for the problems. |
William |
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JK
Top Member
USA
7307 Posts |
Posted - 04/21/2006 : 12:17:34 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by william
...has no urgency or understanding of the gravity of this situation. ...
I like the above comment, used it in my communication with the reporter.
Your right on target, in my opinion. Parents and schools often have difficulty perceiving what is behind unsafe environments for children and hostile workplaces for their school bus drivers. As intelligent as some school principals and other administrators and some parents perceive themselves to be, they seem to lack insight into Application and Effect.
One of the most effective ways to understand what will happen next, concerning a new student management idea or process, is understanding what happened before with previous good ideas.
Did an adequate student discipline process fall by the wayside before? In some cases both bus drivers and school staff eventually failed to follow through with the process? Is there a history of this anomaly occurring at the facility or at a few schools?
The school bus is a unique place where several classrooms and grades can be mixed together under the supervision of one adult. Any student management and violence prevention process must acknowledge the need for 'in the moment' responses that are most effective in an often crowded and unsupervised environment. This would especially be true when the school bus is in motion.
The greater part of violence prevention is the 'prevention' part of the process. To help break a given failure rate requires focus on the desired environment wanted, identifies the risk of escalation before it blossoms on the school bus and intervening then, not after an escalation is in process at some point in the route.
My research lead me back to a point in our industry's history where the behaviors of adults and kids presented a more stable environment. I've included some of my thoughts on this mater here for the use of school bus drivers and others considering confronting unsafe practices at their facilities and/or some schools.
This introduction from my notes looks at how yesteryears processes intervened in the moment with potential escalations and how those processes in our industry's early history can be adapted to meet todays needs.
Much of what the more professional ol' timers did in yesteryears was practical and appropriate, respect-based -- not fear-based. They enforced safe practices 'in the moment', not the micro managed clerk-like ticket-writing and other officious approaches often used these days.
With sharpened skills much of the more professional ol' timers enforcement strategies are adaptable these days.
For example, refusing to transport by having a defiant child escorted to the school office is such an adaptation that maintains the 'ol timers principle-based approach to tossing a kid off the bus anywhere in route. Supervision has simply been added to compensate for today's issues.
Respect toward the bus driver was a given in yesteryears. Respect, from adults toward the school bus driver, for some strange reason, must often be restored these days.
The failure here is often presented in an obvious lacking from state PTS and employer student management training approaches that fail to first properly train drivers how to deal with disrespectful adults, especially school staff or transportation management staff. And even a fellow bus driver on occasion.
Where the adults act out disrespectfully toward their own school bus drivers, the concept of providing any student management training remains premature.
Another shortcoming these days is that student management policies can all too often demonstrate gross disrespect and mistrust toward their own school bus drivers. Seems so obvious, even to the kids.
Here are a few examples of how to establish who is in charge of the school bus, and doing so with very little bus driver training:
- Teach the bus drivers to claim ownership of their 'turf.' Figuratively speaking, Spray (pee) in every corner of their school bus. Be everywhere on that bus as kids board in the afternoon, move students away from each other that are too loud or tend to horseplay in route, so often apparent before the bus ever leaves the school. Offer the defiant an opportunity to immediately take their issue to the school office, "while the rest of us go home." Doing these things seems to touch the animal instinct of chidrens survival skills, as well as immediately addresses those children that want to take over the pack that day.
- Have school staff members approach every bus when arriving in the AM, and in the AN before the buses depart. The purpose is simply an adult-to-adult affirmation to respectfully ask the school bus driver a simple question:
AM - Before the children are allowed to depart the bus:
"Is there any student I need to speak with before allowed back on the school bus this afternoon?"
Very brief response: Johnny X, very loud; Sally B, in aisle.
The staff member's function is only to ask questions, including questioning the students after they have departed the bus.
Questions only - no statements. The students already know what they did and how to correct it, as was already mentioned to them by their bus driver in route. (It is disrespectful for school staff to assume otherwise or attempt to out do the bus driver with savvy or buddy-buddy likened statements to the kids.)
PM - Before the buses are allowed to depart. Start at the front of the bus line releasing buses on time:
"Is there any student you would like escorted to the office this afternoon?"
Very brief response: Yes, Johnny X, very loud, using obscene language; Sally B, hit Betty T and made her cry.
Two or three, in this case, may be escorted to the office.
When the unruly kids have been escorted off the bus, the purpose of staff is simply to repeat the violations and ask questions:
"Apparently you cussed at the bus driver. What happens next when a student does that on the school bus?"
This approach to student misbehavior usually involves the child calling his or her parent.
When the parent arrives then staff gives this report:
"Removed from the bus because ... (enforcement issue). The bus driver will be calling you later today to discuss specific misbehavior and ask your help to resolve it."
No mater the parent's negative response:
"Were my child riding the school buses, the driver of your child's bus is one of those drivers I would want transporting my child. He/She does not allow misbehavior to escalate to injuries and death before intervening. The bus driver will explain the safety issues involved."
Notice policy was not mentioned - fighting words. Parents often have a completely different perspective of policy, making a stream of false assumptions is not unusual. To engage, using, It's our policy ..., is often a preamble to escalating a conflict with the parent. (Enforcement, via policy, is, of course, appropriate in an official setting.)
In the settings discussed here, the encounters were kept informal, the information limited until the bus driver calls. This approach helps end commutation screw-ups, staff/parent false assumptions, and unwanted escalations.
The trigger for a more official approach would be the bus driver writing a bus referral, or the school asking the bus driver to write a referral. In any case, the professional school bus driver keeps "Memory Notes," of each days events. This is necessary for possible official or legal reference at some point in the future.
This is the most basic of basic collaborative violence prevention training and intervention strategies. Yet, with most school bus drivers and school staff, these few principles, adapted from yesteryears, are just as effective these days.
Principle-based training are often time-tested. Fad training is often good only for a few years, if that.
Remember these Four Strikes and adapt them to responses when dealing with adult defiance. These kinds of responses are usually presented in an official meeting or report and where policy may be discussed as well:
Neglect toward children's calm, safe school bus environments;
Hostile workplaces;
Good health threatened;
The bus driver's Honor toward the community at odds with loyalty to the employer, the school or a defiant parent.
When the schools student discipline mismanagement reaches a point that good health and honor is threatened, that is a final warning to confront unsafe practices, not deny a problem exists.
Bruise those that have neglected children's safety on the school buses and that provided nothing other than hostile workplaces for the bus drivers.
Notice that little in these notes talks about the kids. The kids are irrelevant until the adults involved first get their act together. (jk)
FREE School Bus Safety Ads & Photo Library
New Hostage Takeover, bus fire and special effects photos now available Free to use at websites, in newsletters, memos, the local press, letters to parents and more. This is a very popular Website. If you can't get in bookmark the page and try again later.
There is no school bus driver shortage!
Properly train, effective support and pay that retains.
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Edited by - JK on 04/21/2006 12:28:49 PM |
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GA bus drivers ask for more student discipline
