Did I do the right or wrong thing? Vaping on school bus.

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Designated school bus, not a public bus, my daughter who is in first year! I mentioned to her form tutor it’s known that some of the older children vape on the bus. Honestly, I thought I wouldn’t have been the first parent to bring it up to the school as they all know kids vape on the bus and I cannot imagine many parents would be happy about it.

this was a few days ago and today an incident occurred where the vapers thought a child was the one who ‘snitched’ and threatened him!

I now feel guilty as it could have been me talking to the school that escalated this, feeling sorry for the boy threatened, as he is a vulnerable child and an easy target.

but also how dd is upset worried they’ll find out it was me as a parent - she knew I had told the school and they will take it out on her!

what do I do now?!

I am hoping the mum of the boy threatened today will be straight to the school with it - she does seem to be on it straight away with everything.

do I stay quiet?

but honestly, vaping on the bus needs to stop anyway! There’s children as young as year 9 vaping, I don’t get it!

Seems like they needed to address it anyway!

Did you speak to her before telling the school or only after? Not saying that you had to obviously, but was she aware at the time?

Sounds like they’re not doing a very good job of controlling it either way.

Obviously speak to the school about children being threatened. Remind them to maintain confidentiality as a matter of your daughters safety. Ask if after 2 incidents they will install a supervisor on the bus or if they have another way to ensure safety.

Tell your daughter there’s no way they will find out and she should relax.

she was aware that I was going to tell the school and was there when I mentioned it to her form tutor (no one else around!). She had been coming home struggling with the smell of it!

You go back to the school to update. No brainer really

You mentioned it to her form teacher? In person or email?

and the school main office should have been your first port of call

Thanks. The child who was threatened rang his mum immediately and seems like somebody who would not take to that sort of thing lightly - so I’m hoping she’s contacted the school.

there’s just no end of poor behaviour on the bus, not just vaping, just bullying, kids chucking things around, running around, shouting etc!

they have recently permanently excluded a student for bus and school issues so at least there’s one gone!

Yeah absolutely. It was at a parents evening type thing so in person. Dd was flaking to tutor about her bus anxiety and it came up. I had been planning to let them know officially.

Hopefully the other mother will speak to school, but actually it is a bus company issue. The driver should be monitoring this and stopping it.

Schools contract out transport and it will be whichever bus company runs that route that needs to deal with this.

Talking

Is your daughter being bullied on the bus?

Apparently there is very little a driver can do whilst on board. They have to just report to the school!

Parents evening with form teacher - no

Email to school main office - yes

At the start there was issues with her and a child who has previously bullied dd but it settled down.

Report it to the school immediately that a child was threatened on the bus. This is classed as retaliation and most schools will come down hard on this. If your DD can give either names or descriptions it massively helps the school identify who it is.

Most school policies deal with any kind of escalation with punishments and potentially bringing parents in for a chat with their child. My DC's school were an absolute gem at stamping any sort of behaviour like this out.

Do not stay silent, you were right to report it in the first place, report this now.

As above wasn’t intentional that I was going to speak at that time! It came up as talking about the bus!

When I was catching a school bus they used to just stop the bus and refuse to drive unless everyone stopped twatting about!

They'd also refuse to transport persistent offenders.

Sometimes I think school staff would be put on the bus as chaperones, although that didn't happen on the route I was on.

Why does nobody deal with this crap behaviour these days? I travelled on school buses from age 4 to 18. Anyone misbehaving would get thrown off by the driver. Whilst I appreciate they can't do that these days, they should at least pull the bus over and take a note of the names of the culprits to report to the school. We all had bus passes - as I'm sure they do now - so could easily be identified.

I never went on a school bus but my partner did and said you’d often have staff or bus captains! I guess like a lot of things people are too afraid to say anything or intervene!

100%!

I would be worried about this starting up again

Ok so drop the school office an email with this update and make clear your daughter is absolutely not to be identified

Yeah it’s always on my mind but luckily dd is comfortable talking about most things with me and is really open with me without me having to question her!

Agree with the others that the bus driver should stop the bus. Ask the bus company what their policy is for this. Vaping is banned on public transport by all major companies, so they should be clear on what their drivers are supposed to do to take action.

The policy shouldn't say 'Ignore it and keep driving'. They should have a system in place to deal with troublemakers. We've had kids banned from school buses by the company. It's up to the parents to then get them to school.

Unfortunately schools can't ban them from using the transport, but the bus company can.

can you imagine the uproar when “little jimmy had to walk a mile home from school with his one leg because the bus was stopped due to boys up the back vaping”.

the cries of “why were parents not informed at the time. my daughter had to walk home in the dark” (come winter).

yeah the bus will not be stopped. however i wonder if it could be turned back to school and all children held there and parents asked to collect/search them or somethimg? No doubt howeber the perpetrators would escape before dad came to collect them….

I have heard that the bus was turned back on one occasion due to behaviour! Not since my daughters been on it though!