Cequan Haskin’s mother wants the public to know how bad bullying can be, which is why she held a press conference and released the video showing the torture her 10-year-old son endured at the hands of two teens riding the school bus with him last year.
The bullying reportedly went on for forty minutes, while the teens taunted Cequan with racial slurs and burned him with a cigarette lighter. Cequan was screaming in pain, and yet his bus driver didn't do anything to help.
The driver was an adult employed by the school and the only one ultimately responsible for protecting Cequan, and she didn’t. Clearly, the school district's anti-bullying training needs a serious upgrade.
Tell Appomattox to train its school bus drivers to protect children from bullying.
We, the undersigned, would like to know what Appomattox County Public Schools has done about bullying on school buses since Cequan was so badly abused.
It makes no sense that two children, apparently with special needs like Cequan, were held responsible for actions that the school bus driver should have been either preventing or stopping as soon as the bullying began.
The video clearly shows the bus to be almost empty, and there was no way the driver was not aware, based on Cequan’s loud screams, that something very wrong was going on.
There is no excuse for her not pulling the bus over and stopping it, and if she needed help, calling on someone. That is, unless the school system has discouraged bus drivers from asking for help, which I suspect could be the case.
However, whatever the school’s policy, it doesn’t excuse the poor judgment the driver used, certainly under the circumstances where she knew the smaller child was being ganged up on and hurt. Without stopping to investigate, for all she knew he could have been in more serious danger.
Out of eight news articles appearing on this story, none explained what, if anything the Appomattox County School System has done to remedy this situation and do al it can to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
We request that Appomattox respond to these questions, and ensure that no bus driver will ever again allow a child to be abused and traumatized as Cequan was last year.
Thanks for you attention to this serious matter.
