News BRIEFS Maryland Bus Attendant Gives, Receives a Precious Gift
WRITTEN BY RYAN GRAY
RYAN@STNMEDIA.COM
School bus drivers and attendants often see and hear things that teachers and even parents do not. Debbie Brown proved that point last year. In just her first couple of months on the job as a bus attendant for Maryland’s Harford County Public Schools, which neighbors Baltimore to the northeast, Brown wondered why one of her students was confined to a wheelchair despite otherwise appearing healthy. She asked the school bus driver what was wrong with the student, Sylva Green. He told Brown that Sylva had a prosthetic leg that apparently didn’t fit, would fall off and caused her a lot of pain, especially at the hip. So she used a wheelchair instead. He recounted helping Sylva on several occasions to navigate the bus steps when loading and unloading, even carrying her when she fell. Brown went home that evening both-
ered. She figured there had to be something the school district or someone could do to help Sylva, who had opened up to Brown and talked to her almost every day, includ- ing about the pain she experienced. Brown recalled seeing commercials for
Shriner’s Hospital for Children and the disabilities services they provide. Tese include outfitting patients with proper- ly-fitted prosthetic limbs that don’t cause any more physical or emotional pain than the child is already experiencing. “She was in that wheelchair for a long time. I don’t understand why the people taking care of her, you know, the ones who gave her the prosthetic leg, I don’t know why they didn’t just say, ‘Hey, we don’t have the proper (equipment), we can’t help you. I don’t know why they’d didn’t tell her parents to go somewhere else,” said Brown. “I don’t understand.” Brown said she felt the need to tell some- one and went home that evening to let it all marinate in her mind. Her husband encour- aged her to speak up, and she approached
Bus attendant Debbie Brown helped a student receive a life-changing gift.
Danielle Lister, Harford County’s supervisor of transportation, to ask if it would be ap- propriate to call Shriner’s and inquire about what could be done to help Sylva. “I was ecstatic when she called me and so
proud,” Lister said. “Debbie is so compas- sionate and at the time was brand new to the position. She hadn’t been with us very long. But she was thinking outside the box.” Brown called Shriner’s to provide back-
ground on Sylva’s disability and asked if she might be a candidate for a program de- signed for children under 18 that connects them with properly fitted prosthetic limbs. Te doctors readily agreed to accept Sylva into the program. Now 17, she received a Hello Kitty-themed prosthetic leg that fits “really nice,” said Brown. “She’s totally different. She’s not in a wheelchair now, she can walk,” Brown added. “It’s totally changed her life.” While appreciative of a Recognition of
Excellence award given to her in October by the transportation administration in re- sponse to going above and beyond the call
of duty, Brown remains humble and unas- suming. She is more interested in crediting her peers in the transportation department and the specialists at Shriner’s Hospital. “I feel like I’ve gotten too much credit,” she said. Tat Brown found her way onto the bus in the first place happened almost by acci- dent. For more than 20 years, she owned a private, home-based daycare center before deciding to look for a different career. Well, sort of. One day while shopping, she ran into a school bus driver who had trans- ported some of the children who attended Brown’s daycare and recommended she apply at the district as a bus attendant. “Tat’s how I got this job. I wasn’t even looking for it,” Brown added. Call it destiny, but it brought Brown
and Sylva together and altered the course of history for a girl who dreams of one day being a dancer. “I want to know what’s going on with the kids in my care, that’s how I am,” said Brown. l
Read more on how school districts train drivers and attendants to provide positive interactions for students on the bus in our Web Exclusive section at
stnonline.com.
36 School Transportation News • JANUARY 2016
PHOTO: MATT BUTTON, THE AEGIS/BALTIMORE SUN
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