The News Journal has a follow-up on the attack by a bully that was caught on videotape on a Brandywine School District bus. The incident wasn’t reported to authorities until Monday and, yes, the bus driver apparently kept on driving even with a fight going on. The incident is being investigated by the State Police as well.
Holodick [Brandywine School District Superintendent] said district officials are reviewing the situation, as well as what was happening in the weeks leading up to the attack, which he called “unacceptable.”
“This is the first time these two students had a confrontation,” he said. “That doesn’t mean that there wasn’t anything prior to this happening. The school district is doing everything to ensure that something like this doesn’t happen again.”
“Clearly, there is a perpetrator that has to be reprimanded and dealt with,” Holodick said. He added that all students are afforded due process and would not say what, if any, action has been taken against the fifth-grader.
In response to the incident, an aide was assigned to the bus Wednesday and students on that route are now riding on a new bus equipped with two video surveillance cameras instead of one, he said. A supervisor driving a gold SUV was also seen following the bus Wednesday.
I know that the timeline seems a bit stretched here, in incident happened on Friday, investigation began on Monday and it seems as though nothing really happened to Wednesday. From my own personal experience when my son was punched repeatedly on a bus, we called school district that afternoon. Though the bully was on the bus the next morning, he was not on the bus in the afternoon. Brandywine School District acted in a quick and effective manner for us. Why didn’t that happen this time? Are there other incidents that are not dealt with effectively? What steps will Holodick put in place to make sure all incidents are dealt with quickly?