Student...1st Grade Beat down by a Gang

Recently in the not to distant past, a 1st grade student received a beat-down by a 4th grade student.  The fight was vicious and one sided, the 1st grade student was punched, kicked, slapped and thrown against the window by the 4th grade student.  The confrontation occurred because the 1st grade student was tired of being called gay, a little girl, snitch, ugly, white boy and other words that I am not at liberty to express on paper, so he began to actively return the insults.  The insult led to a vicious confrontation between him and the 4th grade students.  In conclusion, the 1st grade student ended up getting suspended off the bus and there were no consequence implemented for 4th grade student because this Atlanta Public School is known for not supporting bus driver nor dealing with disciplinary issues of student.

When the 1st grade student return back from the suspension two days later, I assign the kid to a seat directly behind mine. The 4th grade student, a 5th grade student and two 3rd grade students continued to verbally taunt the kid and throw paper directly into his face.  The 1st grade student asked them to leave him alone as well as I instructed the students to go sit down, but they did not comply.  I knew that I needed to get the children to school in order to deter a physical altercation, but my game plan did not work, because as I was in route to the school.  The elementary students began to beat, slap, kick, and punch the 1st grade student and his younger sibling. There was immediate chaos and I had to pull my bus over in order to intervene and protect the kids being attack.  There were pure evil in the eyes of the gang after the 1st grade student, they wanted blood and I knew that I could not drive the school bus and need assistance to separate the kids.

I called over the radio for assistance and shortly afterwards I flagged down a fellow school bus driver, who took the 1st grade student and his sibling off my bus for safety and well being. In my ten years of driving school bus, I have never seen a group students want to inflict harm on individuals as these students.  I am happy that I was able to intervene between the students before severe harm was inflicted upon the 1st grade
student and his sibling.


In conclusion,  It took a gang fight, and reporting the incident to my supervisors, and Director of Transportation, before this particular school administrators took action on the students and suspend them for three days.  If the administrators would have dealt with the students the first time, then there would not have been a gang fight three days later because the 4th grade student would have been suspended. There are principals that take more than 48 hours to deal with student behavior and in certain areas of Atlanta this is too long and leads to a hostile, unsafe environment on the school bus.  Administrators must deal with misbehaving students immediately in order to prevent "THE BIG FIGHT" from happening and causing physical and emotional damage.

 In the process I got verbally reprimanded for doing a "safety concern" student swap at an unauthorized bus stop, instead of returning to the school. (I had to make the swap or the two kids would have been seriously injured by the gang)  I was told that the student was not bleeding and EMS was not call, so I should have not swapped the student at the unauthorized bus stop. I tried to explain to the director that if I would try to start to drive off in the volatile condition that the gang would commenced to pound on the 1st grade student and the kid would be a bloody pulp before I reached the school.  I am confident that I made the best decision for situation I was dealt with out the assistance of a supervisor or school resource officer.

In addition, I found out that my supervisor was at the school less than a minute from the "gang beat-down." incident. Instead of coming to the bus and assist me with the students trying to brutally beat a kid, the supervisor decided to stay at the school and nothing but wait for me to figure out how to get the students under control on my bus.

Solutions to Improve future similar incidents: 

1. Administrators should copy the format of other schools within its cluster and deal with student misconduct immediately on the spot when the school bus driver initially report the incident.

2. Vicious fights need to be dealt with immediately and video footage pulled for review.

3. School Bus Drivers and school official should not have to get an "Act of Congress" to get his or her video footage to be pulled for review.

4. Gangs fighting should be dealt with more harshly than normal fights.

5. Teach students to not take their issues into their own hands, and report any bullying or threaten actions to the school bus driver.

6. Supervisors should come to the actually location where his or her bus driver is in distress.

I believe that I did the right thing by intervening because if the camera footage of the gang fight was reviewed it would look very similar to the  boys beaten down a kid in Florida, where a bus driver got ostracize by not intervening.  The difference in my camear is that I am helping the 1st grade student stay safe.