Bullying has been making headlines around the country, and it affects kids in and out of the classroom. When bullying occurs on the school bus, not only does it harm children, it can distract drivers. Gina Crump, a former school counselor and character education professional from Missouri, decided to take matters into her own hands to address these issues. As the creator of the ZoeBus, Crump educates students and bus drivers on things like respect and behavior management in order to reduce these behaviors.
Crump told STN that during her time as a school counselor, she had many students come to her with stories of bullying on the school bus.
Gina Crump presenting on the ZoeBus.“Before I knew any better, I remember thinking, ‘What are these drivers doing? Why aren’t they doing anything to stop this bullying that’s happening?’” she said. “The more I learned, I realized how big of a challenge drivers have. We ask them to discipline kids the same way we ask teachers. But teachers only have 25-30 kids at a time, and they’re facing kids. What about drivers who have twice as many kids and they can’t look at them? It’s just this huge challenge they have before them.”
As a character educator, Crump did training sessions with school bus drivers and offered tips on how to promote good character on the bus, as well as manage difficult behaviors. But she soon realized that while she often interacted with school bus drivers on a regular basis, she really had no idea what it was like to drive a bus. This led to an idea that would eventually spur the development of the ZoeBus.
In order to see for herself what it was really like to drive a school bus, Crump took an early retirement from her work as a counselor and educator, got her commercial driver’s license and drove a school bus for a local district for a year.
“I always tell people that as a school counselor, I had to have some pretty tough conversations with people, as you can imagine. But nothing prepared me for the job of being a bus driver. That was definitely the hardest thing I have ever done,” she said with a laugh.
Her experiences as a driver helped her understand just how difficult, and sometimes underappreciated, the work of a school driver is. She also realized that the behavior of student passengers could also play a role in overall safety.
“The kids, they were responsible for their words and actions, and their behavior is either helping the bus driver or distracting the bus driver and potentially making the ride unsafe,” Crump said.
The idea for the ZoeBus was born soon after. Crump decided to dig into her savings and buy a 1997 Blue Bird bus and retrofit it to become, as she calls it, a “rolling classroom.” The bus was retrofitted with drop-down video monitors, a new paint job, and what Crump describes as “fancy wheels and wide single tires in the back.”
“I just wanted a unique way to teach these important safety habits and safety behaviors and that was the best way I knew how, where kids could come on and practice in the same setting, in the school bus setting,” she said.
A typical lesson for Crump involves about 50 students, and starts outside of the bus. There, Crump tells the kids about the “danger zone” around the school bus and what to do if they drop any of their belongings in that area. Drawing on her background as a character educator, she emphasizes the importance of good character with lessons about respecting the school bus, driver and fellow passengers, and why this is important for overall bus safety.
She says she makes her lessons fun and interactive, incorporating things PowerPoint presentations with fun imagery, fly swatters and other activities.
“I tailor all of my lessons. I try to use whatever terminology district is using. If a district focuses on character words, I’m going to use character words, so the kids are hearing the same language that teachers and all adults are using with them,” said Crump.
So far, Crump has taken the ZoeBus for training sessions in her home state of Missouri, Arkansas and Illinois. But her sessions don’t stop with students. As she did before the ZoeBus, she also trains drivers on things like behavior management.
“What can you do to help that child so you don’t have to remind them 20 times to sit down during the route? I might suggest taking one of your responsible third-graders and having them sit with your squirmy kindergartener and reading a book to them,” adding that this does not make the older child responsible for the other’s discipline, but that it gives them a sense of responsibility, allowing them to feel valued, and the younger child can now have something to direct their attention to.
“I try to think of proactive things that drivers can do where they can avoid raising their voice or taking their eyes off the road,” she said.
