In his recent letter, Mr. John Ogorzalek makes a series of points simply not grounded in reality (“Suggestions could fix bus driver shortage,” Sept. 30). However, I do want to make it clear that I think his first and fourth points — that two adults should ride school buses (one for driving and one for discipline) and that bus drivers deserve higher pay for the important jobs they do — are good ones.
Unfortunately, I do not think so highly of his second and third suggestions. Ogorzalek asserts that school bus drivers should simply be allowed to not pick up students they feel create problems on the bus and that students who engage in serious misconduct on buses should be sent for criminal prosecution. This is — and there is no better language for it — a shortsighted and stupid opinion to hold.
Ogorzalek seems to enjoy the idea that students are worse today than they were back in his day and that these new troublemakers need to be handled via new means. However, anyone who was on a bus in the ’60s, ’70s or ’80s could tell you that trouble has been happening on those vehicles for many decades. Yet, I doubt that anyone would argue that a student — who, let us remember, is a child — deserves to not be picked up for school by the school bus for some silly and childish misconduct on-board.
Furthermore, the fact that Mr. Ogorzalek argues that — and let me make this clear, children — deserve to be criminally prosecuted for misconduct on school buses is absurd. School bus drivers deserve adequate compensation for the important jobs they do, and they should have backup to deal with disciplinary issues on-board. But what they should not do is abandon children on the side of the road nor seek prosecution of them for childish acts.
Jack Heavner
Dover
