threaten to beat up the bus driver. “For a while we had a female driver who was doing well with that student for a few months, but then that situation ended and we put a male driver on the route who was very good at talking with this student,” recalled Martinez. “Nor- mally if there is an issue that continues, we can expel a student from the bus. But we can’t deny a special needs student transportation, so that became a very difficult challenge.” Training drivers, and the entire school staff, changes each year for Salt Lake City. “It’s fluid,” said Mar- tinez. “We modify it to the world we are living in. We teach our staff how to recognize signs of bullying, and to be able to make a difference in the student’s lives. Our special needs department came in and trained us in how to better address transport- ing their students at the beginning of [this] school year.” As far as his drivers adapting to
more bullying on the school bus in recent years, he admits that he believes his staff has adjusted to it. “It seems normal to them because they haven’t experienced what those of us who have been in the industry for a few decades have experienced,” he explained. “We remember the time when kids were held account- able at home and when there weren’t knives or guns brought to school. Now, it’s like the adults have to prove themselves, instead of the other way around like it used to be. There weren’t school resource of- ficers (SRO) back then because we didn’t need them. We have SRO’s in our high school now.” Mo Canady, the executive director of the National
38%
of transportation directors/ supervisors said bullying incidents on the school bus increased last school year.
(Out of 85 responses to a recent STN magazine survey.)
because there is cyberbullying. Kids used to be able to go home and get away from the bullies, but not anymore if it’s via social media.” The role of school resource officers is often educat- ing students on different issues and offering informal counselling. “We’re law enforcement officers, so a bullying issue from our standpoint and what we can do about it is a little bit complicated,” Canady said. “Officers know that the majority of issues that are classified as bully- ing don’t necessarily correlate to criminal activity. A lot of cases are social isolation and name calling and other taunts that could drift into harassment. Those are fine lines sometimes. Then we get into phys- ical assaults and those are a whole different matter.
“Getting our hands around this
issue as a society, not just as a school or a school bus issue, is maybe one of the biggest challenges we face with adolescents,” he added. “We’ve got kids committing suicide over this issue. When I was a kid on the bus, there was bullying, but now, social media has had a profound impact on the problem. They can’t get away from it, and it becomes very psycho- logical; where they just have to know what someone is saying about them.”
Training and Understanding the Adolescent Mind “Our law enforcement training for school resources
Association of School Resource Officers, commented on the particular issues that stand out today in terms of bullying. “Kids who are different in any way are subjected to bullying,” he remarked. “Is the transgen- der issue going to bring on bullying? Sure it is. But not by any stretch of the imagination is it the only one. Bullying is just as much of a problem now as it was years ago. I don’t think anything has changed that much, but it does become more complicated
officers is constantly being updated,” said Canady, adding that the training is reviewed annually and may be subject to a massive overhaul if needed. The past year was one of those years, where the basic course was updated, and the advanced management course is in the process of being updated. Recently, they’ve added subjects like adolescent brain develop- ment. “It seems that the further research goes into this,
they’ve discovered that adolescent brain develop- ment is now extending, for some individuals, to age 25. It’s no wonder then, when we ship kids off to
Visit
www.stopbullying.gov for national-level bullying prevention training for school bus drivers offered by the U.S. Department of Education.
www.stnonline.com 21
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