- April 24, 2024
-
-
Loading
Loading
The parent of a Palm Coast elementary school student who was involved in a bus fight wants the school district to bring back bus monitors.
Elva Thompson’s son, Delwayne Wilbourn, was riding the Gerbil bus earlier this month on the way home from Rymfire Elementary School when, she says, her son was beat up by three other students.
Thompson said her son suffered injuries to the back of the head, lip and leg. She took him to the emergency room that day.
She also reported the incident to the school district. After investigating the incident and watching the footage from the on-bus camera, Director of Student Services Katrina Townsend said it appears as if the boys were “playing.”
“In fact, it looks like they are rough-housing and the bus driver tells them all to sit down,” Townsend said.
Townsend said she doesn’t think any serious crime was committed. The three students accused in the incident have been removed from the bus, but because they are in different grades, they have remained in the school.
“My evaluation is that they were all at fault,” Townsend said.
Thompson wasn’t sure as of Thursday afternoon if she was going to press charges. If she does, Townsend said the district will address whether to separate the students into different schools. But for now, the incident is closed, Townsend said.
“(Wilbourn) doesn’t interact with those students during the day,” Townsend said. “If they were in the same classroom, we would have moved them around. But they are in different grades, and they don’t have interaction during the school day.”
Thompson disagreed, though, saying that her children have been getting “dirty” looks from the three students throughout the day.
The bigger issue, Thompson said, is preventing more fights from happening. To do that, she suggests the district look into bringing back bus monitors.
“The bus driver is driving, and he can’t see everything,” Thompson said. “He has to keep his eyes on the road.”
With the school budget being a hot-button issue lately, Thompson said the district could go through volunteer agencies to keep costs down.
Townsend said fights on busses do happen but it’s more of students yelling at each other — it’s not always physical. “We do have (fights), but it’s not like a daily thing,” she said.
She said the district addresses bullying on a case-by-case basis.
“If it’s a one-time incident and we intervene and it stops, we really try to keep students in school and in class,” she said. “If our intervention and discipline doesn’t change that behavior, then sometimes our hands are tied, and we have to pursue more disciplines and interventions.”
Thompson said Thursday that her son was cleared by his doctor but that he still has swelling on the back of his head where he hit the floor of the bus.
