School bus monitor Karen Klein, 68, became a celebrity and media sensation after a video of her being bullied by grade school students went viral.
The video (which is attached to this story) has been uploaded to Youtube several times and has garnered millions of views. Klein, 68, was a bus monitor in Greece, New York when the incident occured. The video appeared on Youtube June 19.
As Patch blogger Judy S. Freedman wrote, .
The incident also has led to the harassment of the students involved and their families, the Democrat and Chronicle reported. Some of the students involved had received death threats, the newspaper reported.
Since the video became public, the students have been suspended for a year and will reportedly attend an alternative school during that time.
A Toronto resident, Max Sidorov, was so upset by the video that he began an online fundraiser for Klein. Sidorov's goal was was to raise $5,000. Instead, Sidorov raised about $665,000.
"It is ridiculously more than I expected," Sidorov told USAToday. "I just had an idea. It's the people who took it and ran with it."
Chris Kelly wrote a blog post for Huffington Post stating that Klein should give some of the money to the school district she worked for. Kelly wrote that Klein should refund her salary of $15,506.
"[W]hy was she there? What did she think her job was? What did the parents who put their children on the bus think? Because, for $375 a week, to ride the bus twice, she doesn't appear to be preventing very much bullying," Kelly wrote.
Klein never reported the incident to the school district, USAToday reported.
In an interview with WGRZ-TV channel 2 Klein said that she is not returning to work as a bus monitor. As for the money, Klein was asked about people who have questioned whether she was doing her job and deserved the money: "That's basically what they're saying I guess. I didn't plan this. This wasn't my idea."
What a set up. Who writes these "let's bait our readers" trash? This isn't news nor is it good journalism. All these articles do is inflame. NO, it WASN'T worth $665,000. It was worth A LOT MORE in self-respect, pride, humiliation!!! Here was a quiet, gentle woman thrust into the public eye through no fault of her own. Give her credit. She's one heck of a Lady.
Having said that, and having watched the tape, I do conclude that she was completely incompetent at her job, not necessarily her fault, as it is possible that the school district's training of its bus monitors and its procedures for dealing with abuse of bus monitors was wholly inadequate. She should have informed the driver and the punks should have been kicked off the bus right then (they all have cell phones to call their parents for pick-ups) and banned from school transportation. If they refused to get off the police should have been called, just like METRA conductors call local police to remove passengers for insubordination and disorderly conduct.
Speaking only to a parent now, take a close look of how you comment about your co-workers, situations in the news, and anyone you disagree with, are your spoken works consistent with free speech and the open exchange of idea’s, or a one sided tirade about how “stupid” so and so is? Any “national debate” on bullying excuses the actions in the video if the kids’ good grades in school and hold their tongues until they step on the bus, or out of view of school officials. You know, “boys will be boys”. As parents we may stand up and take note when an extreme situation leads to physical harm, or worse. Again parents look at your own form of discourse and conduct, and not only once a kid seriously harmed.
I don't think parents are afraid to punish their kids as you suggest, assuming that would prevent any future indiscretions. Did it work with you? A more appropriate step would be to do what was done with bad apples on the bus when I was a youngster; the bad apple(s) would take a ride back to the school where the parents could pick them up. Then give junior some public service, cutting the school yard lawn with a push mower? But a true deterrent would be to place adults on the bus who are serving out some form of community service. I see in the papers frequently about a variety of traffic offenses that include community service. Benefits abound, no cost to the school, other than remedial training for the adults, given by a school staffer on how to “handle” little Johnnie or Mary. Our community as a whole would become more aware of how kids really act, and take real steps to identify and remedy the unruly children that act like this.
Q1: Is the behavior of the kids wrong? Q2: Is the behavior of the kids ok because they were just stressed out after another day of learning from a sociology major that George Bush is the reason why they are all screwed up in the head?