FIRST TAKE Eyes Are Never Quiet WRITTEN BY RYAN GRAY |
RYAN@STNONLINE.COM “I
f anybody was going to do it, it was going to be him.”Tat’s what one student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School told the Associated Press about Nikolas Cruz, the
expelled student who is charged with killing 14 students, a teacher, an assistant football coach and the school’s athletic director while wounding more than 14 others last month at his former campus in Parkland, Florida. Te mass shooting, reportedly via an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, stands as the third worst school massacre by gun in U.S. history, behind only Sandy Hook and Virginia Tech. What exactly was it about Cruz that led a former classmate to express little surprise that’d he carry out such an act? Was it his eyes? And if his peers, his teachers really felt that way about Cruz, did they say anything to anyone? We do know the FBI previously investigated at least two tips about Cruz after he made threats via YouTube and other social media. Te FBI receives about 100 “actionable” tips a day. Yet someone at the FBI didn’t find Cruz’s threats to be actionable enough or simply failed to follow up or share the information with other law enforcement. So if the feds are unable to stop school shootings, what kind of chance do school bus drivers have? What the Valentine’s Day shooting has already
resulted in is a renewed call on the U.S. Department of Justice to more fully fund the hiring and training of school resource officers, who are already sworn and fully armed law enforcement personnel. But it takes a special kind of person to wear the hats of teacher, mentor and confidant, as good SROs do.
Tese sound to me to be the same types of traits we look for in school bus drivers. Tere have been no calls, however, to raise their wages or to give school districts more resources to better train these front-line employees. And of course, the shooting at Marjory Stoneman
Douglas High School has also resulted in renewed calls for strengthened gun control, especially in terms of further regulating access to automatic weapons. But more importantly, it has prompted us all to take a longer look at mental health issues in our country.
10 School Transportation News • MARCH 2018 While we may never fully grasp why Cruz opened
fire on his former schoolmates and teachers, the more information that comes out certainly indicates that he was a ticking time bomb as the result of deep seated troubles and childhood trauma. Tis month, one of the expert speakers at the TSD
Conference is Lori Desautels, Ph.D., an assistant professor at Butler University and an expert in brain science, development and the effect of adverse childhood experiences. She has used applied educational neuroscience when training school bus drivers on understanding how students’ minds work as a result of trauma and how to help identify behavior and mental health issues. Too many of our nation’s students, she says, are like
Cruz. Tey’ve been labeled as emotionally disturbed or developmentally disordered, often times because of the violence and abuse they’ve suffered during their short lives. Te good news is that students’ brains can be rewired via healthy attachments, opportunities and experiences, and this is where school bus drivers can and do play a vital role. She shares brain-aligned strategies that drivers can implement with their students during morning and afternoon routes to promote healthy relationships and emotional regulation. And in the process, drivers can reduce some of their own stress. We’ve often heard that a simple smile and greeting to a student can go a long way in reversing negative thinking. And that goes both ways. Te eyes of troubled youth are always communicating,
Desautels explained to me. If you look closely enough, you can see the hurt. And hurt people hurt other people. Certainly, some of those who knew Nikolas Cruz saw the pain in his eyes, though no one was willing or able to help him. Tat’s no excuse for his horrific actions, not at all. But as the district’s first line of response, how can we all help school bus drivers reach their most vulnerable students and in the process help these children get the resources they so desperately need? Te TSD Conference will provide some answers.
Ryan Gray, Editor-in-Chief
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