The school bus company who had an incident with a driver earlier this month, has been suspended without pay, TLS has learned.
On February 10th, TLS reported about a 10th grade girl walked onto a school bus holding a cup of coffee, when the male bus driver allegedly grabbed the girl’s arm, grabbed away the coffee, and then continued to scream at the girl.
The parents of the victim, as well as the parents of a girl who witnessed the incident, phoned the bus company, who reportedly said they would be investigating the incident and reviewing footage.
TLS reached out to the bus company for comment, but they did not respond.
Today, the LSTA told TLS they reviewed the footage, and it confirmed that the driver stopped the girl from coming onto the bus by “touching” or “tapping” the student, though it did not appear he actually grabbed her arm.
The LSTA also acknowledged that the driver did indeed lose his cool, raised his voice and grabbed the coffee from her.
Though the bus driver apologized to the student for the incident, the driver was suspended without pay, and will require mandatory retraining.
The LSTA is encouraging parents and students to report incidents.
“Should you have an issue with a driver, reach out to the school or the LSTA so we can assist you,” the LSTA said.
While encouraging parents and students to report such incidents, parents and students should be encouraged to refrain from eating and drinking on school buses.
100% agree
Whats more, I dont know this particular situation, but the driver putting out his arm to stop the girl entering, and chewing her out for doing so is not necessarilly wrong!
If it was a first time offense, or the driver went unhinged then i hear.
But unfortunately, sometimes there are kids (usually based off their parents “es kimt mir” attitude). That don’t know how to listen and behave with basic decency.
We have gone soft, and we dont know where to draw ANY lines for fear of “their going to resent” Blah blah..
Well, while we have to be warm, we can also be firm. And kids (and adults) who do not understand how to behave with respect, should experience the consequences, Softly, but firmly.
Would never have happened in the old days. Nowadays, we have allowed our youth to feel that they are in charge and those in authority must apologize to them.
Chutzpa Yasgi
A grown man should have never put his hands on a young girl. Ever, for any reason.
thats idiotic, of he put out his hand to stop her from advancing with the coffee there is nothing “grown man putting a hand on a girl” there.
Stop making issues out of nothing.
Beautifully said.
Everyone notice that the bus company ”did not respond”. I had an incident this summer and the bus company “did not respond”. This empowers the drivers over the clients, us.
It is like so many other critical services in Lakewood. As the exponential population growth overburdens the towns resources the service providers are in greater demand than they can handle (i.e.: institutions of education, etc) and empower them to be in control. תעלה בעידניה סגיד ליה
This is the unfortunate truth
You aren’t the clients. you don’t pay them…
Everyone notice that the parents “did not respond”.
I think it would be a wise idea to apologize for bringing a drink on the bus when you knew very well that this will upset the driver.
A grown man should have never touched on a young girl. Ever, for any reason.
again, stupid comment.
dont make mountains out of molehills, and attribute sinister intent to a simple incident.
The question here is if the drivers temperament disqualifies him from the job, not the freak-out weird stuff your .
We are bringing the anti semitism unto ourselves by being rude to the driver who is rightfully entitled to ask the girls not to drink on the bus.
This driver has friends and family who will be upset when we use their parks.
The driver did not hurt the girl He shouldn’t have touched her, however the girl was wrong.
Let’s teach our kids to behave properly and that will bring a kiddush hashem, not the opposite which is what happened with this story.
There is such a thing as two people being wrong, it doesn’t have to be one or the other, we also don’t know exactly what happened even by reading this, so you can’t really say either were wrong. Maybe they were both right.
This isn’t really a news worthy story!
First of all what is the policy of the school and the busses and that driver. Maybe he’s right.
I was wondering why the LSTA felt that the most pressing safety issues regarding riding busses was eating and /or drinking. I would have voted for keeping limbs in the bus. Now that I see this post it makes more sense how the picked the topic for their first safety tip..