Bus Driver...Parent tries to Hit kid on Bus!

Why should Atlanta School Bus drivers receive a cost of living increase and the raise that they have not received in the last 7 years? Why should new employees be processed quicker so that they may have health benefits and retirement?

 The answer is simple: We school bus drivers work in a very hostile and high demanding profession.  I am willing to bet if researchers were to do a case study on APS Transportation they would easily discover that our profession is one of the top 5 stressful jobs in Atlanta.  Many drivers deal with multiple fights on their buses on weekly basis, but yet we manage to get students to and from school safely. in addition other drivers in the North Atlanta area deal with countless hours in traffic and dealing with high demanding principals and parents, who wants us to perform miracles to accommodate their children.

Allow me to share a couple of stories…

Mr. Charlie has been a school bus driver for APS for 15 years.  He is an honest man that provides and loves his family.  Mr. Charlie is firm but fair and always does the right thing.  One day, while he was cleaning his bus after his route,  Mr. Charlie discovered a large quantity of drugs hidden in one of the seats.  Mr. Charlie did the right thing and turned it into the school and reported it to the police.  Well, the student who stashed the drugs was not happy that Mr. Charlie did the right thing and ended up threaten the life of the school bus operator.  “Mr. Charlie, you’re going to pay for what you did with my drugs.”  Several weeks later after the child did his time and court proceedings, the student kept his promise. The student organized several boys and  assaulted Mr. Charlie as they were exiting the bus to go home from school.  Mr. Charlie was severely beaten ended up spending several days in the hospital.  Yes, this occurred to an Atlanta School Bus Driver.

Silvia is a newly employed school bus driver and she only been driving for APS Transportation for

three weeks.  It was a warm April afternoon, when all of a sudden a fight broke out on her bus at heer designated stop.  The kid was getting his head pounded by a bunch of boys.  While the fight was happening,  a student who had exited the bus went into a house to get help for the kid getting jumped on by the other boys.  The help came out the house and one of the individual’s had a gun and proceeded to approach the front of the bus.  Due to the bus being blocked by kids, Silvia could only close the door.  In the process of closing the door, the driver reached into her purse as if she herself had a gun (the driver did not have a gun).  The individual with the gun backed away stating, “Sweetie, this fight isn't with you.”  The individual proceeded to the back of the bus, opened the emergency door and began to pistol whip a student on the bus.  On a side note: due to unprofessional radio traffic and interruptions,  Atlanta Police were not efficient to arriving to the scene.  Radio traffic control is another huge problem with APS Transportation.  

Lastly,  It is against the law for parents to board a school buses in the state of Georgia (Georgia Law Title 20-2-1181), but it seems as if parents negate this law and board the buses  anyways.  Personally, this has become a huge issue because these parents are threatening to hit other people’s children.  I had an incident where a parent attempted to hit a child on my bus, but luckily I was out my seat belt, and I was able to physically remove the parent off the bus.  I was angry that the parent would try to strike the child and I wanted her arrested because she clearly violated a state law.  Needless to say, administrator or APS Transportation did not press charges against the woman. Thankfully a month later we were able to sit down with the parent and resolve our differences.  

A similar story with another bus driver, a woman and her friends wanted to board an APS School bus and fight the driver and several students.  The driver understood what was going on at the stop and closed the kids and the one woman inside the bus and drove off leaving the woman’s friends behind(The bus driver did not want to get beat-down by a bunch of women).  The woman began to shout offensives, but quickly softened her tone when she recognize that the driver was a “heavy set” man and she did not have her back up.  She resolved to get off at the next stop!  The school bus operator would later get in trouble for “kidnapping a parent,” when he was trying to protect himself and students from more hostile parents.  His actions may have been questionable, but not to the extent of being reprimanded. He made the best decision for himself and the kids at the the moment.

Atlanta Public Schools clearly has a breakdown in discipline issues concerning their students. School

bus operators are catching the grunt of this collapse in character and behavior.  Everyday we turn the key, we wonder if we are going to make it through the route.  We are wondering if this is the big fight that one of our students get hurt are killed.  We are afraid of hostile parents, whether they are going to storm our buses and cause bodily harm to our children.  These hostile and unappreciative conditions that we face today deserves the consideration of a cost of living increase, raises, and processing hourly workers with benefits. Lastly, fair treatment...now you wonder why we are fighting to get paid and continual demonstration of discontent!

My hat goes off to all Atlanta Public School Bus drivers who have kept it together with little support and made the most of what APS gives us. Yes, I appreciate you!