The Ride to School: Safe or Scary?

Driver Training

Increasingly, the training of school bus drivers in the United States includes paying serious attention to managing the behavior of disruptive students. Psychological means for doing so, through the skilled use of rewards and punishments, are appearing regularly in driver training courses, as is training in the physical skills necessary to intervene in a fight and restrain the combatants in a way that is safe for them, the driver, and the other students.

Surveillance Technology

To aid in the apprehension (and conviction if necessary) of students causing trouble, and even more to discourage such trouble, surveillance video cameras are with growing frequency installed in school buses to scan and record student behavior. In part because such cameras are expensive devices, many districts have placed a camera box on every bus (each with a red light that is constantly on or flashing), but put an actual camera in only a portion of these boxes on a rotating basis. Several commercial companies sell this equipment:

Each promotes its wares as a means to:

Ride-Alongs

Just the driving part of driving a school bus can be a daunting and demanding task. Doing it safely and responsibly requires of the driver both skill and fulltime attention. To serve additionally as behavior manager of dozens of students seated (or not seated!) behind the driver and out of his or her line of vision is often very difficult, and not infrequently dangerous. In response, a number of school districts have added a second adult to the bus, a person responsible for such behavior management. This individual, working on a paid or volunteer basis, may be a guard, rider, monitor, parent, or aide. For many children, the mere presence of such a person is enough to put a damper on aggressive behavior.

Student Sanctions

When driver training, surveillance devices, and ride-alongs are unavailable or insufficient, aggression-reduction sanctions may be directed toward students themselves. Students may be assigned seats so that when bus vandalism occurs, its perpetrator can be identified more readily. Apprehended school bus vandals may be required to provide restitution via money and/or bus-relevant (washing, cleaning) community service. In some states, if the bus driver judges that the safety of riding students is being jeopardized, he or she is permitted to stop the bus, call for assistance, and have the offending youth or youths removed from the bus.

School Procedure

In and around the school, and on the bus itself, added steps may be taken to deal with student aggression effectively. Lists of bus behavior rules and consequences for misbehavior are being distributed to students and their parents each year and posted on all buses. School administrators and teachers may each do a ride-along once or twice a year, both to help manage the students and to learn through experience about riding student behavior. An adequate number of teachers and staff may be deployed every day in the near-school area where and when buses arrive in the morning and leave at day’s end. This milling around, waiting time can be an especially volatile period, during which it is common for student aggression to erupt. Working together, driver, rider, parent, teacher, and school administration can make the ride to school a safe and aggression-free trip.

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