Nov 11, 2006 9:11 am US/Eastern
Bus Drivers Practice For Students' Future Safety
by Cydney Long
(CBS 3)
Screaming and shrieking filled the school bus, but they were not the cries of young schoolchildren. New Jersey bus drivers pretended to be panicked students during an anti-terrorism drill aimed at saving students' lives, teaming with New Jersey Homeland Security officers and Gloucester Township police.
"When you know who your enemy is and how they operate, it makes it a lot easier to combat them," said Edwin Moore of the New Jersey Department of Homeland Security
As part of the New Jersey Education Association Convention in Atlantic City, participants enacted possible terrorist situation, rehearsing security measures and creating a scenario with a man dressed as a student walking onto a bus, carrying a suspicious bag. Shouts of "I want everybody orderly, remember what we practiced in school!" and calming words continued the role play between the students and the driver.
Bonnie Chalfont, a South Jersey school bus driver for twenty-seven years said, "When they collect the weapons in schools, once they pass through the metal detectors, how do you think these weapons got to school? On a school bus."
"We're the first ones they see, we're the last ones they see. We know when they're fed, we know when they're beaten, and we know when their worst things happen."
Bus drivers and teachers also had classroom workshop training aimed at better communication, teacher-to-teacher, school-to-school, and county-to-county. These precautions are taken because they believe the fear is no longer if terrorism may strike, but when.
Tears filled seventh grade teacher Mary Steinhauer's eyes as she reflected on the recent school shootings, bomb threats and hit lists.
"Some of the kids think it's kind of a joke, you know, it's another fire drill. But it's not… It could be real. You still get the knot in your stomach, and you still get that feeling of, 'what if?'"
(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
