Florida schoolbus racism scandal

[mahdokht]

A school bus service in Florida has refused to carry Iraqi and Afghani refugee students for a second time in a week.

Some 27 students aged between 10 and 14 were abandoned outside Jacksonville last Wednesday, over eight miles away from home.

http://www.vancouver.indymedia.org/n...3/11/78844.php

[TiredX2]

Concerned parents contacted the school, which informed them that nothing could be done other than to make sure the driver was not given responsibility for these particular students again.

I thought it was called: FIRE THEM!

And where are the non "foreign looking" (as they are so eloquently referred to in the article) kids that should be standing up for their friends?!?!

[Dragonfly]

I would think having the offending bus drivers arrested for child endangerment would be a good start... maybe followed by a nice civil suit.

Yuck.

[mahdokht]

***

[Marlena]

I don't know what really happened, but I'm also finding other descriptions of the account:

JACKSONVILLE, Fla.

Muslim students say bus drivers discriminated

A group of Muslim students said a bus driver ordered them off a school bus for being too loud and another driver refused to pick them up later in the week.

The drivers work for First Student, a bus company contracted by the school district. Company officials could not be reached.

"We are working cooperatively with First Student to determine what happened," Superintendent John Fryer said.

About 20 Fort Caroline Middle School students, ages 10 to 14, were told to get off the bus Monday because they were being too loud, said Ahmed Bedier, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Florida. Bedier said it appeared Muslim students were singled out.

The students also say another driver wouldn't pick them up Friday. A school spokeswoman said the students refused to board the bus.

That was from the St. Louis Post Dispatch, 11/03/03, A6.

From the Miami Herald, page 6, 11/01/03:

According to First Student, a small group of students was removed from the bus before its departure because of disciplinary problems.

While taking other students home, the bus driver said other students began acting up, so he returned them to school so they could contact their parents.

Several refused to call their parents and began walking home. Administrators and a school police officer followed them and attempted to get them to return to school.

A teacher picked up some of the students in her car and took them to their homes, Fryer said.

Fryer's office did not comment on allegations that a group of Muslim students was prevented from boarding a bus at the school bus stop Friday morning.

[mahdokht]

***

[kama'aina mama]

Dh and I rode a school bus here last week for a field trip. I was interested to note a handlettered sign posted near the door that said, "Failure by a student to get OFF THE BUS when ordered by the driver is a MISDEAMENER!!!! That means ARREST!!!!"

Emphasis and large print and underlining is original to the sign, as best I recall it.
I found my self wondering at that point... is there a lower age limit on that? What are the drivers responsibilities to notify someone, to guarantee the students safety? I have no idea.

[CerridwenLorelei]

hmm having dealt with liars before I wonder

if the children really were being a problem of if that is just convenience on their part to make it look like they did nothing wrong?

or if other kids were involved too and they didn't get in trouble because they were not Muslim??

but then I am a cynical old bitty

[kama'aina mama]

I think you mean biddy. And I don't think you are!

[Greaseball]

T
Crazy bus driver...

Here is my experience riding public school buses.

When I was a freshman in high school the bus driver one day cracked up. Before she had always been normal, but then one day as she picked everyone up from school she suddenly ordered us into assigned seats. There were several seats left empty, and several seats where three students were crammed in. After we all sat down she sped off. She was going 60 mph down icy roads in residential neighborhoods. (This was in Alaska.) Students were screaming. She then ran over two dogs. Most of the kids were crying by this time. She drove us all back to school. The principal came onto the bus. The hysterical kids tried to tell him what happened, but he said we had to stay on the bus; that she was the one who had to take us home. Students were told if they tried to arrange another ride they would be suspended. Most of them decided to take that risk.

The next day she was still driving but my dad would not allow me on the bus. A few days later she was fired.

I had another driver in middle school who would speed over the speed bumps so fast that we would hit the ceiling. Public school bus drivers make very low wages and probably do not like their jobs. Not the kind of people I want my kid around. When I worked at the police department an officer got fired for "embezzling and excessive force" and he then got a job driving a school bus.

So the racism thing does not surprise me.

[CerridwenLorelei]

Kama mama no I meant

bitty I am only 5ft 1 after all