 | MESPA Home > MN Bullying Prevention Initiative & Bookstore > Understanding Bullying | | Peaceful School Program gets students on board with positive behavior
A school bus route that’s constantly disrupted by harmful, inappropriate student behavior affects every aspect of school life. The anxiety students feel when riding the bus can translate to lower grades—and lower ratings for the school. Parents may feel the school isn’t listening to their concerns. Bus drivers may feel the school doesn’t support their efforts. Teachers and administrators spend more time doing damage control and face increased potential for burnout.
Now, imagine a bus where students know each other’s names (and the driver knows theirs), older students step in to assist and protect the younger ones, and there’s a sense of pride in being together as a group.
The Peaceful School Bus Program can make that vision a reality. Published by Hazelden, the program was developed by James Dillon, an elementary school principal of Lynnwood Elementary School in upstate New York. He is also a certified trainer of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (OBPP).
The Peaceful School Bus Program is designed to decrease inappropriate behavior while creating a climate of respect and cooperation. Like OBPP, the Peaceful School Bus Program is a total systems change approach rather than a curriculum. Having implemented OBPP, Dillon and his staff understood that the adults within a school are responsible for making the school setting safe for all students. That setting includes school buses. A recent survey by the National Association of School Resource Officers stated that 35 percent of its members reported an increase in school bus violence.
Lynnwood began using the Peaceful School Bus Program in the 1999–2000 school year. The year before, the school had 58 bus discipline referrals. The time Dillon spent investigating incidents and gathering evidence was time that he couldn’t spend being proactive. “I felt like I was in Law and Order,” he recalls.
In the past four years, the average yearly total of bus referrals at Lynnwood was nine. During the 2007-08 school year, the school logged its first referral on December 7.
How it works
At $99, the Peaceful School Bus Program takes little money or time to implement—good news for schools that are strapped for both. The heart of the program is the bus route group. Teachers, administrators, parents and students take part in group meetings, which are held at least three times a year for about 45 minutes each. Students participate in team-building exercises, older students are paired with younger students, students talk about behaviors that are and are not acceptable, and get to know their driver.
Dillon recommends holding the meetings somewhere besides the bus. “If you have a meeting in a nice room with a pleasant environment and comfortable chairs, it sends a message that each person is valuable and what we’re talking about is valuable.” For many students, this may be the first time they see their driver without the background noise of the bus.
Although the Peaceful School Bus Program was developed and implemented in an elementary school setting, the program can be adapted for use with middle school and high school students. The older students can serve as role models, mentors, and bus route assistants.
The Peaceful School Bus Program includes a 111-page implementation guide, a 15-minute program overview on DVD, and downloadable resources on CD-ROM. These resources include posters, bus decals, activity handouts, a parent letter in Spanish and English, a bus route leader-training outline, and an implementation checklist.
Two Peaceful School Bus Program Examples
Katie O’Brien, principal of Duanesburg Elementary School in Delanson, New York, has been using the Peaceful School Bus Program as a stand-alone program for over three years. Before implementing the program, there were concerns of kids saying and doing mean things on buses. O’Brien said that it was hard to have direct supervision on buses, with one driver and 60 kids. Bullying on the buses is an issue because kids are “stuck on a bus and can’t run away from the bullying.”
O’Brien likes the Peaceful School Bus Program, especially the meetings. “It’s useful to have meetings by bus and to be able to talk about safety. Now we’re talking about bullying and targeting this behavior. It’s working very well.” Since students in middle school also ride the bus with the elementary students, O’Brien brings them over to the elementary school for the meetings. During the meetings, they play the role of “Peaceful Bus Helpers.” She’s found that it’s been very beneficial to have these older students there to support younger kids.
At Westmere Elementary School in Albany, New York, principal Deborah Drumm implemented the Peaceful School Bus Program four years ago, when, after implementing the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, she noticed that bullying was now happening on the school buses.
Drumm was impressed with how well the kids responded to the program. When asked what kids like most about the Peaceful School Bus Program, she had this to say: “[Kids] feel a sense of security that problems on the bus won’t go unnoticed, that they will be addressed by an adult.”
Drumm also said that the Peaceful School Bus Program “empowers students to make better choices and find solutions.
Kids feel a sense of accountability both for their actions, and for reporting bus incidents.”
Four times a year, Drumm brings the kids from the buses into the school building, where they do cooperative learning activities in pairs. Also attending this bus route group meeting are the bus driver and one other adult. Kids develop a relationship with these adults and each other. They also know that they can go to these adults with issues that arise on the bus.
And how are parents responding to the Peaceful School Bus Program at Westmere Elementary School? “They are pleased that we do it,” Drumm said. “They feel relieved and reassured that the school is addressing this issue.”
The Peaceful School Bus Program works as a stand-alone program or as an enhancement to a comprehensive violence prevention program such as the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, also published by
Hazelden.
This article originally appeared in The Voice newsletter and is reprinted with permission from Hazelden Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Center City, Minnesota.
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| | The Minnesota Bullying Prevention Initiative is a partnership of the
Minnesota Elementary School Principals’ Association, the National Association
of Elementary School Principals, and Hazelden.
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| | How
can we effectively and compassionately address the needs of children
who are being bullied, children who are
bullying, children who are bystanders, and the adults around them? This
is from a series of articles by Hazelden -- examining the issue of
bullying
prevention and offering strong, workable solutions.
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