Middle schoolers torment an elderly bus monitor and post it to the internet

[Irish_Mike]

Live right near where this happened and I'm sick that kids are like this - they aren't cool, they aren't funny; it's hurtful and I am glad that the woman gets to get away from this all and just enjoy her life.

I'm also hearing that, because of the amount saved, they are talking about making this a retirement fund.

 

[dakcp2001]

I saw on the news today that these little bullies are now playing victim. They have police posted outside their homes and they don't feel safe. Boohoo. I hope they get verbally accosted wherever they go, wouldn't that be a little karma? I mean this time it was caught on tape, how many times have they gotten away with it? The bus monitor also has stated that the kid who taped it has always been well behaved and polite to her. He did film an apology which he sent to her (not for YouTube) and a letter saying he was sorry. None of the others have.

I am very curious what their disciplinary action will be. If anyone finds out, please share. This lady is not tough enough to work with middle schoolers. They need someone meaner. She is too sweet, I hope she finds something better or can retire. The bus has become a place whe bullies thrive, why aren't the schools/ drivers/ monitors doing something to prevent this? I think they need cameras everywhere.

 

[MrsPete]

I only watched about two minutes. That was enough for me.

On the one hand, these kids are definitely out of control and have no respect for themselves or others. An appropriate punishment would be to kick them off the bus -- maybe if their parents have to figure out how to get them to school everyday, they'll teach their little monsters some manners.

On the other hand, the monitor -- while I do feel sorry for her -- isn't very effective in her job. She's there to control this type of behavior and instead she's become the victim. I wonder if she didn't receive any training, or if the administration doesn't back her up, or if she is just spineless. If the school has hired monitors, it's because they've had problems on the busses before -- surely she's been provided with some punishments? Her presence alone isn't enough to make the kids behave. I don't know what the school has authorized monitors to do, but I'd think she might've 1) had the driver turn around and return the kids to school to meet with a principal, 2) taken down names so she could contact parents and have them kicked off the bus for a couple days, 3) taken a stand when the first few kids started this behavior -- before it became a group thing. Again, we don't know whether she's personally unable to manage the discipline or whether she's tried and isn't supported by her administration.

Having been a teacher for two decades, I can tell you some kids will run all over a person if they perceive that they're going to be allowed to do it. An experienced teacher will shut this down and call on administration for back-up when needed. A new or weak teacher sometimes responds just as this woman did -- allowing herself to remain a victim. In the portion I watched, she didn't say or do anything to try to stop this behavior. These kids are bullies, and while we tend to think of them bullying other kids, they will pick anyone whom they perceive as weak. Maybe she wasn't well informed that the job involved disciplining kids, or maybe she was a poor candidate but no one else was available.

Also, I'm sure this wasn't the first time they'd pulled this stuff. Kids don't go straight to this level of disrespect and bad behavior. I'm certain they started with something smaller, and they were allowed to get away with it, allowed to get away with it, allowed to get away with it . . . and they've worked their way up to this shocking behavior.

Regardless, the kids deserve a strong punishment, and they deserve to be watched carefully in the future -- they are little sociopaths in the making.

 

[MrsPete]

Seriously, why do they post this stuff on YouTube!? What do the kids THINK will happen?

They think that other kids'll watch the video and respond like most of the others on the bus did: They'll think it's lots of fun to make fun of a helpless person. They think they'll look cool.

 

[MrsPete]

He did film an apology which he sent to her (not for YouTube) and a letter saying he was sorry. None of the others have.

Kids of this caliber are never really sorry for what they've done. Oh, they're sorry that they got caught. Sorry that they were punished. But sorry for they did, nope.

You'd think that their parents might have a clue though. You'd think that their parents might say, "Look, kid. You're in hot water here. We're going to write an apology and send it to her. It'll make you look better when we are dragged in before the school board."

 

[4nana]

Dear Lord, what is this world coming too ?! I can't imagine ~ how absolutely heartbreaking to watch and for this poor lady to endure . I pray it has no long lasting effect . Hopefully charges can be pressed and these horrible juvenile delinquents need to be held accountable and properly punished for being so inhuman. Their parents must be devastated!!

May Karen's donations reach a million $$$$ and she laugh all the way to the bank.

 

[MM27]

I watched up to the part where the one kid asked her why her face was wet and she said, "Because I'm crying"
Unless there is more at the end that I didn't see, it looks like you can only see one kid on camera. I hope he (or his parents) rat the rest of them out so all involved can get whatever punishment is in store for them. I read on the Huffington Post article that money was raised to send her on a nice vacation.

 

[dislal]

That video was disgusting. The parents probably are no better than the kids. I hope the school punishes them because I'm sure the parents won't.

 

[monsterkitty]

Kids don't get it. They think messing around on a bus is funny. I teach middle school kids and I have seen videos of how they act on a bus. They think, "The bus driver is beneath me, I can do whatever I want."

This past year the kids on one of our busses decided that they didn't like the assigned seats they were given by the driver. So they thought it would be fun to throw things at her while she was driving. It started small, with little pieces of paper. Our amazing (sarcasm here) administration did nothing to back her up so the objects became apples, pop bottles, and finally snow balls.

The parents of thses lovely children actually stated we had doctored the video and it really wasn't their children. I am not kidding you.

Finally, I snapped in class when some of these "angels" walked in late to my class because once again they were throwing snowballs at the bus driver's head. I pulled up pictures of school bus accidents and projected them on the screen so every kid in the class could see what can happen when a bus hits a car or lands on a car. I even called out the kids by name and said, "that could have been your family that died in that car".

Yes, I became that teacher. And guess what? Parents of the other kids in my class called and thanked me. After that the other kids started telling the "angels" to cool it when they started acting up again. A hand full of these kids were finally kicked off the bus for good, but this should have happened when the first piece of paper went flying through the air.

 

[wdwmom0f3]

I only watched about two minutes. That was enough for me.

On the one hand, these kids are definitely out of control and have no respect for themselves or others. An appropriate punishment would be to kick them off the bus -- maybe if their parents have to figure out how to get them to school everyday, they'll teach their little monsters some manners.

On the other hand, the monitor -- while I do feel sorry for her -- isn't very effective in her job. She's there to control this type of behavior and instead she's become the victim. I wonder if she didn't receive any training, or if the administration doesn't back her up, or if she is just spineless. If the school has hired monitors, it's because they've had problems on the busses before -- surely she's been provided with some punishments? Her presence alone isn't enough to make the kids behave. I don't know what the school has authorized monitors to do, but I'd think she might've 1) had the driver turn around and return the kids to school to meet with a principal, 2) taken down names so she could contact parents and have them kicked off the bus for a couple days, 3) taken a stand when the first few kids started this behavior -- before it became a group thing. Again, we don't know whether she's personally unable to manage the discipline or whether she's tried and isn't supported by her administration.

Having been a teacher for two decades, I can tell you some kids will run all over a person if they perceive that they're going to be allowed to do it. An experienced teacher will shut this down and call on administration for back-up when needed. A new or weak teacher sometimes responds just as this woman did -- allowing herself to remain a victim. In the portion I watched, she didn't say or do anything to try to stop this behavior. These kids are bullies, and while we tend to think of them bullying other kids, they will pick anyone whom they perceive as weak. Maybe she wasn't well informed that the job involved disciplining kids, or maybe she was a poor candidate but no one else was available.

Also, I'm sure this wasn't the first time they'd pulled this stuff. Kids don't go straight to this level of disrespect and bad behavior. I'm certain they started with something smaller, and they were allowed to get away with it, allowed to get away with it, allowed to get away with it . . . and they've worked their way up to this shocking behavior.

Regardless, the kids deserve a strong punishment, and they deserve to be watched carefully in the future -- they are little sociopaths in the making.

I couldn't agree with you more.

 

[ChrisFL]

The parents of thses lovely children actually stated we had doctored the video and it really wasn't their children. I am not kidding you.

That is the part that gets me, if we wonder whether the kids are acting out, despite what their parents do....then you hear that, and all sense of their parenting ability goes out the window.

 

[cornflake]

Seriously, why do they post this stuff on YouTube!? What do the kids THINK will happen?

I don't want to watch for several reasons, but mostly to respect the monitor's privacy.

I hope she gets all that money though! That is awesome!

They didn't post it on Youtube - they posted it on Facebook to amuse themselves. An unrelated party saw it there and uploaded it to Youtube specifically to expose them for what they are.

Every one of those kids should never be allowed on a school bus again - walk your sorry, snotty little butts to school and back.

Some empathy training every weekend for a year or so also might be nice, along with each sending her like $20 a week until they graduate, in an envelope, addressed and sent weekly, with an apology every time.

 

[dakcp2001]

I agree, they should be banned from the bus. Let their parents deal with getting them to and from. They raised these little monsters, let them suffer the consequences.

 

[Sabrefan]

This video made me so sick - I wish the woman would have turned around and punched him right in the face, would have been worth the jail time. I also hate that it tends to make people want to stereotype children with the "kids these days" and "this generation" I have never met a child that would do something like this. I know kids that shaved their heads a week before prom to raise money for cancer victims, and how about that kid that raised thousands of dollars to send military families to Disney?

On a positive note, last I heard they have raised over $80,000 for this woman. I hope she will be able to retire and not deal with this behavior again - I watched her reaction on the news last night and she said she would continue to be a bus monitor "because not all kids are bad"

 

[Andtototoo]

Too bad public floggings are no longer acceptable.

 

[Heidict]

I'm sure these are a bunch of future criminals in the making. Sure, they probably won't get jail time over this, but I'm sure that at some point in the future they will break the law and end up there. Maybe then they will learn what it's like to be the victim. Bubba will teach them a lesson or two that they won't ever forget.

They have obviously been raised to believe that it is okay to treat others this way and that being mean and bullying people is fun. Their parents should be ashamed of themselves. Or do the parents not even care? Did they learn this at home?

Their names are all over the internet so I have a feeling their lives will be a living hades for a long time to come.

They need to be suspended from the bus for all of next school year if not permanently.

 

[MrsPete]

Kids don't get it. They think messing around on a bus is funny. I teach middle school kids and I have seen videos of how they act on a bus. They think, "The bus driver is beneath me, I can do whatever I want."

Other people who are "beneath these kids" include the school custodians, lunch ladies, their teachers, and often their parents. Kids like this have an exaggerated sense of their own importance, though it's rather obvious to everyone else that they're headed nowhere in life.

The parents of thses lovely children actually stated we had doctored the video and it really wasn't their children. I am not kidding you.

Oh, I believe you. I've heard administrators at school say that they've shown videos to parents, and some still insist that it's not their kid. Must be some other kid who looks like him. Not all parents, of course, but the parents who are raising little monsters.

This video made me so sick - I wish the woman would have turned around and punched him right in the face, would have been worth the jail time. I also hate that it tends to make people want to stereotype children with the "kids these days" and "this generation" I have never met a child that would do something like this. I know kids that shaved their heads a week before prom to raise money for cancer victims, and how about that kid that raised thousands of dollars to send military families to Disney?

If I judged just on the kids I know in my personal life (church, scouts, my girls' friends), I'd only know the outstanding citizens-in-the-making too. However, as a teacher, I assure you that these monsters do walk amongst our kids. I've seen and heard of things just this severe in my own school. That's the thing about public school: We serve everyone, good and bad. And they are both out there.

 

[Jennasis]

Terrible little punks.

 

[lilmissdisney216]

That is just awful! I can only imagine how that poor woman would have felt! Those children are just terrible and unfortunately nowadays it seems that mommy and daddy want to point the finger at other people instead of having their children take the responsibility for their actions and then they manage to have the incident swept under the rug and the kids only get about as much as a slap on the hand. I think the language was by far the most appalling thing I heard. And parents allow their kids to behave like this [not saying that all parents are terrible, but you always have the few bad apples in the bunch that make it difficult for the rest].

 

[Mkrop]

That poor woman...

If that was my child, they would have trouble walking their butt to school after being kicked off the bus.

These nitwits should never be allowed to ride a school bus ever again, and they should all have to attend sensitivity training and they should have to do community service at a senior center or a nursing home.

I hope the admistration punishes these kids.