Transportation Department Commits to Anti-Bullying

September 26, 2016

The Duncan Banner reported that the Duncan Public Schools’ transportation department in Oklahoma has accomplished a first by receiving a grant that will help staff make the vehicles students use to get to and from school a safe place against bullying.

Leeann Arredondo, transportation director for DPS, said she was thrilled to have her department take part of the United Against Bullying grant program.

“The grant itself was introduced by SEON Corporation, they are one of the camera vendors that we use,” she said. “That corporation put this out there as ‘United Against Bullying Grant’ that came in my SEON email one day and I thought, ‘You know what? We are going to try for this’ especially with the budget cuts. In this time there are always concerns on how we can continue to improve the quality of the staff development at little to no cost to the district so we put in for the grant.”

The training of the district’s transportation professionals is important to Arredondo. The grant is $3,000 for Arredondo and her staff to use as they see fit.

“We are currently evaluating how can we get the most out of the money that we were given,” she said. “This was a grant that allows the opportunity to improve the quality of our technology utilized in educating our drivers, increase our Bully Prevention training, evaluate how we are identifying and preventing bully situations and to also provide at least one additional security camera to our fleet.”