Though recent acts of terrorism here and abroad have many on edge, school security professionals maintain that the more likely threat to children’s safety, particularly aboard yellow buses, is posed by friends and neighbors. This is why school bus drivers need to be vigilant and prepared for these “homegrown” acts of violence from district students and their parents.
News headlines from the past month attest to this reality, including “Video Shows School Bus Attack While Driver Stands By” and “Two Mothers Found Guilty in Bus Driver Assault.” In the latter incident, the school bus driver responded the way safety trainers advise: He stood up, pointed to the “No Trespassing Sign,” repeatedly directed the parents to exit immediately and called police when they didn’t comply. But the bus driver still got punched.
Chuck Hibbert
Chuck Hibbert, a consultant for National School Safety and Security Services, said the most important question bus drivers can ask themselves after any confrontation with a parent or student is: Are my actions consistent with my training? When training school bus drivers on effective communication, Hibbert recommends that they use the same “command voice” with parents who are trespassing as they would use with students who are fighting.
“I also tell drivers to close the door. In my district we had one driver close the door and it broke a mother’s arm. The bus driver didn’t get in trouble, but yes, we had to pay those medical bills. And it was consistent with her training,” said Hibbert, who retired after 21 years as coordinator of safety and transportation services for the Wayne Township Metropolitan School District in Indianapolis. Prior to that, he served as a 12-year member of the Indiana State Police. Since then, he has received extensive specialized school safety training and served as a master-level instructor in nonviolent crisis intervention, as certified by the Crisis Prevention Institute.
“Another thing you teach drivers is to understand what their options can be. They don’t want to be trapped in that seat by an active intruder,” he said, adding that drivers need training on how to give clear and direct verbal commands as well as using body language to convey authority.
“Do (districts) spend as much time on behavior management training for new drivers as they do training them how to drive the bus? Of course the answer is no, nobody does,” Hibbert added. “People say school safety is number one but are they devoting the same resources to it as curriculum, Mr. Superintendent?”
He pointed the Reynolds High School shooting last June in which the perpetrator carried his weapons onto the bus, hidden inside a large guitar case and duffel bag. One question schools must consider after this type of deadly attach is: If your school rules allow children to bring band instruments onboard, can and should those be stored underneath the bus?
“Drivers need to be empowered to take action. Question Chuck if he gets on the bus one day with an instrument case and hasn’t brought one before. Ask him, ‘Can I see it?’ Empower those folks to take the time,” Hibbert said. “That’s a training issue. We have expectations people will perform at certain levels, but they perform at the level at which they are trained.”
More Expert Tips
Gary Moore, a 29-year veteran of the Missouri Highway Patrol and current safety coordinator for the Missouri Center for Education Safety, told STN the bus drivers in his safety trainings often tell him they don’t know how to handle violent kids on the bus.
“First of all, I teach drivers about JDLR, which is somebody or something that ‘just doesn’t look right.’ When something jumps out of your range of normal, it becomes a JDLR. Then we talk about communication skills. If you have good communication skills, you can de-escalate tough situations — but if you have poor skills, you can escalate it,” he said.
Moore explained that some self-examination is required for bus drivers to be fair when addressing students against whom they may have a deep-set prejudice. In his training, he discusses pinpointing and getting rid of prejudices you may have about an individual’s skin color, tattoos, piercings, clothing and so on.
“Your prejudices can make a situation go sour that doesn’t need to. You’ll predetermine the outcome of something because of your own prejudices,” added Moore, who gave a presentation on the “Driver’s Key to Safety” at the NAPT Summit last October.
He also teaches bus drivers to think outside of the box and use smart driving techniques to prevent an attack from either an angry intruder or passenger.
“Say you’ve got a violent kid who stands up that has a gun or knife, and your bus is moving, then you need to use your bus as weapon. You’ve got brakes, accelerators and a steering wheel. You can hit your brakes and send him flying. But you need to have a game plan — don’t just hit the brakes and hope for the best,” Moore continued. “If the bus is parked, you may need to get out of your seat and get on top of him to neutralize the situation. If it’s a regular fight, then it’s a different deal and you have different school policies and procedures you’ve got to follow.”
Both safety experts emphasize the importance of slowly pulling to the side of the road if a violent situation occurs while the bus is in motion. They also offer the same advice if something “just doesn’t look right” at a bus stop you’re approaching: Don’t stop. Keep going and once it is safe to pull over, then contact the transportation department to make a report.
Moore provided other common examples of JDLR, such as a stranger hanging around a bus stop or taking pictures of your bus. Also, he said that if bus drivers notice a student who shows up dressed completely different than usual, they should document it and report it to a supervisor. While on the state patrol, for instance, he recalls questioning people who were dressed in too many layers of clothing for current weather conditions, because they could be trying to hide something like a weapon or stolen items.
Like Hibbert, he conducts scenario-based training that provides violence prevention techniques gleaned from decades of experience in law enforcement. Moore has conducted his “Active Shooter–School Bus Specific” training about 60 times since October 2013.
“It was while working with the Department of Homeland Security that I became more aware of school bus safety issues: How to make it safer for the kids and make it safer for the driver,” Moore said. “In law enforcement, we have focused on teachers and students, and we’ve often overlooked school bus drivers, secretaries, the maintenance people and cooks. We’ve looked past them, so shame on us.”
