school bus management, route optimization, school bus routing software, school bus bullying, bullying, school bus driver shortages, inefficient routes, outdated routes, inaccurate routes, route efficiency, state reporting, re-routing, bus shortages
Students who are being bullied often exhibit some warning signs. If parents, school bus drivers, teachers and other school officials are aware of these signs they can take action to stop and work on reducing or eliminating the issues.
Bullying can leave deep emotional scars and threaten a student’s overall self-esteem and mental health. In extreme situations bullying can lead to violent threats, property damage and serious physical injuries. Reports show that bullying is starting at even younger ages and is becoming more frequent and aggressive than it’s ever been before.
One major indicator of bullying that parents can notice, if they look close enough, is the element of fear. Students who are being bullied are afraid to go to school and also afraid to ride the bus. They will often come up with excuses to avoid those situations like faking an illness or not feeling well. Sometimes they will even deliberately try to miss the school bus so that parents will have to give them a ride to school. The bus ride to school can be the worst part of a student’s day when they are the victims of bullying so they will do anything to try and avoid the situation at all costs.
Another indicator is when a student is silent and hesitant to talk about what is happening both at school and on the bus. Many victims of bullying suffer in silence for fear of retaliation. Often the student will feel embarrassed or worry that their teacher, parent or guardian will not believe them.
Other signs include students returning home from school with torn clothing or missing possessions. Even a change in behavior, such as appearing sad, moody or depressed when they come home from school can indicate that something else is going on. If a student begins to lose interest in doing school work or suddenly begins to do poorly in school that can also indicate that a student is being bullied.
The above are all possible warning signs that a student may be the victim of bullying and needs support from an adult. However, these signs could indicate other problems, but all are areas of concern that need to be investigated further. Parents, school bus drivers, teachers and other school officials need to look at the patterns of behavior that are exhibited that fall outside of the normal behavior and not typical for the student.
What do you think? Are there other signs that a child is being bullied? What are some steps that you think school districts can take to help mitigate this issue? Let us know in the comments below!
(484) 941-0820
