Video of bus monitor Karen Klein being bullied goes viral, raises thousands of dollars

[proud2BlibKansan]

An online fundraising effort to assist a Greece bus monitor verbally abused by students raised more than $187,000 in less than 24 hours.

The effort was set in motion by a video of 10 minutes of profane taunting endured on Monday by bus monitor Karen Klein. The Greece school district is holding a news conference with police at 1 p.m. to provide updates on the case, which has gained worldwide attention.

Klein didn’t report the behavior and said she figured she had just ended the year on a bad note.

But one of the kids on the Greece Athena Middle School bus captured the incident on a cellphone camera. The video got pulled off of Facebook late Tuesday and was posted to YouTube. By early Wednesday, it had gone viral across the world. By Thursday morning, it had been viewed more than 1.5 million times.

more . . . http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20120620/NEWS01/306200023?nclick_check=1

Yesterday's thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002834461

[trumad]

1. Excellent....

That's the planet that In long for....

[teddy51]

2. Those little Shit Rats need to be dealt with.

[MADem]

3. It's up over a hundred grand. She ain't poor no more! nt

[bluestateguy]

4. Imagine how bad they would be to another kid who doesn't fit in.

This was an adult. Imagine how worse they are to kid who is fat, gay, ugly or eccentric.

Some kids are just rotten kids and are destined to be bad people when they grow up.

[Douglas Carpenter]

11. I think that has gone on for a long time.

I must say though that I can definitely remember children in the same age group taunting other children in the same age group and it was well known by the teachers, parents and school authorities without the slightest effort to intervene - and that was in the 60's in rural western PA. The only thing that seems a bit colder is that this abuse was directed against a 68 year-old women and this time people are shocked and there fortunately was an intervention albeit after the fact.

[dmosh42]

5. I worked a school bus driver job for a year, and what an enlightenment for me!

Having graduated from high school in 1960, the world was a far different place then now. After retirement I decided to make a few bucks extra by driving a school bus. Once in a while, while being on probation for a few months, they would give me some elementary school route. Not bad to fairly pleasant sometimes! But then I mostly had the middle school routes, and reality really hits! By then whatever the parents were doing to these kids, reaps all kinds of nasty little brats who want to get even with the world for their situations. And the school supervisors were mostly weasels, who wanted to avoid any conflicts with the parents. After I had a few problems with the same kids, I would ask the ass't principal to have a meeting with the parents and myself in attendance. Most school supervisors would refuse, and let the drivers face the brats. Worst job I ever had!

[Are_grits_groceries]

10. My cousin was a bus driver,

and he had the worst kids on the wordt route. He got so mad at them one time that he broke off the gear shift by accident. He stood up, yelled at them and shook it at them. He shut them up that time.
Don't remember how they got home. LOL!

[Trillo]

6. Maybe schools need "bus-rider licenses"

Maybe kids that ride the school bus should be required to be "licensed" by the school authorities beginning at some age. It could be kind of like a drivers license, in the sense that before learning to drive, passengers of vehicles (a school bus in this case) have to be taught how to behave, and then further demonstrate good behavior while actually riding in the bus or vehicle: no bullying, no distracting the driver, stay in your seat, etc. If any student bus rider's behavior is sub standard, their riders licenses could be revoked for periods of time, possibly even requiring them to reapply for a new riders license.

During the time of a suspended bus-riders license, they'd still be required to get to school by alternate means.

[wordpix]

15. no, schools need to have rules about bus riding, using headsets and phone texting in class...

AND stick to the rules. If students misbehave like this, they should be suspended from bus service for a reasonable no. of days. Let them take public transportation, or parents can drive them and be inconvenienced.

I teach in urban public high schools (two of them) and work in various classrooms. The most difficult students are the ones hooked on their phones and music, yet there is no hard and fast rule that students are NOT ALLOWED to use headsets and phones in class. Some teachers allow it, no doubt b/c "Jaquan is quiet when he's listening to music" and "Jasmine is no trouble when she's texting" ---but some teachers don't. The "don't allow it" teachers recognize that students will not learn if they're texting and blasting rap in their ears. If the students get the picture on Day One that they're not allowed in class with their devices, they will either join the ranks of the truant or will start learning and working in class. That is their choice, once they're old enough to know they can walk away from school, or not.

From my vantage point of being in various classrooms, the teachers who have rules about devices and enforce the rules have the most respectful classrooms in an environment where students can and do learn.

While some teachers are strict about such rules, I've found that school "leaders" aren't. My schools have no policies on using headsets or phones in class, to the detriment of the schools generally.

[Cheap_Trick]

7. Great. A Busfull of Mini-Romneys. nt

[demmiblue]

8. Over a quarter of a million now ($271,569)!

http://www.indiegogo.com/loveforkarenhklein?c=home

[obamanut2012]

9. I read on Huff Post she wants to go on a cruise

And have "early retirement" (at 68!) if enough money was raised.

Props to her and to everyone who donated!!!

[wordpix]

12. oh great, now the world can see our nation's rudest kids on youtube, "viral across the world"

What I've found is, if you engage kids in conversation in places like a school bus, they are typically respectful. Also, you need to have a sense of humor. One street tough ribbed me at a high school workplace, calling me "Mary Poppins" b/c I was wearing a sunhat. I laughed and now we're buddies - he calls me Mary Poppins all the time and sometimes I sing him a MP song.

Not blaming the victim, just saying that engagement with students usually works.

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. True but that still doesn't excuse what these kids did.

[Posteritatis]

14. Some levels of malice you can't just laugh off with "boys will be boys." (nt)

[47of74]

16. Where the fuck are the parents?

Don't give me that they're too busy or any other bull shit. If I had done that word would have gotten back to my parents who would've taken the time out of their busy days to blister my hind parts for that kind of crap.