Greenbrook making bus rides safer with ‘communities’
By Patricia Holliday, Greenbrook Principal
In South Brunswick, approximately 8,000 students start their school day at the bus stop.
The social interactions that occur as the children wait together, and the conversations that take place during the ride, can set the tone for the rest of the school day.
In an effort to make these first minutes of the school day as positive and safe as those within the school building, the school climate committee at Greenbrook School developed a plan to promote strong social skills and positive interactions within the five bus communities at their school.
Three years ago, when the school climate survey identified buses as a place where students did not always feel safe and/or cared for during their school day, a subcommittee of two staff members was identified to work on strategies to improve our students’ transit experiences.
Lori Woods, instructional support teacher and Dr. Joanne Perry, school psychologist teamed up to work on interventions.
All elementary schools in South Brunswick have adopted the Responsive Classroom social curriculum, which fosters social and emotional learning within the classroom and the larger school community.
This approach builds community through its clear expectations and routines. Students have a voice in establishing the group norms.
With Responsive Classroom, an environment is created where each student is a valued and important member of the community.
In the first school year, the Responsive Classroom approach to establishing expectations was used to create bus communities. Each "bus" met with Ms. Woods and Dr. Perry to talk about what should be happening on the buses.
The children clearly knew what they should be doing, but readily admitted that they did not always follows those expectations.
Collectively, each bus community made a list of behaviors that would foster a good bus community.
Expectations were expressed in positive statements, such as "Stay in your seat’" and "Use quiet voices."
These expectations were recorded on a poster, which each student signed as an agreement to follow the guidelines.
The posters were displayed in the school hallway all year to school to remind students of the agreements. The bus drivers were given laminated copies to display on the buses.
As a result of this initiative, we saw a decrease in bus referrals for misconduct during the first year.
In the second year of this initiative, realizing that we had left out a critically important element, we invited the school bus drivers to join the conversation.
We spoke with the children about the drivers’ importance and how their own bus behavior is an extension of the expectations during the school day. In most cases, the bus drivers spoke of the positive things that they saw children doing.
All drivers clearly believed that the children could describe the correct behaviors, and more importantly, exhibit those behaviors consistently.
After looking at research, we discovered that our approach had used several of strategies that have been proven to have positive impact on student behavior including; promoting a positive bus climate, teaching appropriate bus behaviors explicitly, signing a bus contract, and assigning seats on some buses as desired by the drivers.
In addition, a mid-year booster session was added and a written copy of the expectations was sent home and signed by student and parents.
This school year, an effort is being made to add several other important features to the intervention.
Ms. Woods and Dr. Perry will periodically check in with the bus drivers in order to keep the beginning of the school year momentum going throughout the year.
They will ride the bus if issues are presented and bus drivers will ask for assistance from the school staff if they need it.
There was also an informal effort to facilitate the natural tendency of the older students to assist the younger ones.
It is truly exciting to observe the buses where children are working together- in communities where everyone is taken care of and feels safe.
Dr. Joanne Perry and Lori Woods contributed to this report.

