The pupils were out of control. They threw balled-up paper, pushed and shoved each other and were rowdy.
Except this time, the scene wasn't real life but a skit acted out on stage yesterday at Baltimore's Thurgood Marshall Middle School in front of an audience all too familiar with the storyline. They all have been on that bus.
The Maryland Transit Administration has gone on the road to city middle schools this year to educate pupils and parents about the dangers of horsing around on buses.
Two children have died this year in bus accidents after they apparently failed to observe basic safety rules.
In yesterday's MTA performance, the bus driver gets up and tries to stop the bad behavior. But when he does, a pupil - played by MTA Police Lt. Kelly Holman - jumps into the driver's seat. The pupil is arrested by a police officer and taken away in handcuffs as the audience laughs.
Holman explained to the seventh-graders at Thurgood Marshall how disruptive behavior on the bus can distract the bus driver and cause accidents. In one case this year, a pupil got off an MTA bus, walked to the side, jumped up and held onto the window ledge. When the bus took off, the boy's hands slipped, and he was run over and killed.
Because the city school system doesn't provide school buses for middle and high school students, many of them ride MTA buses to school, sometimes changing once or twice during the route to school. Some MTA buses are assigned to pick up students at school and continue along a route that drops them off at other bus stops or at central locations so they can get home.
Holman said she has helped with the educational program for years, responding to schools that wanted the MTA police to give an assembly on bus safety. This year, Holman said, the MTA decided to revamp the program to include more pupil participation and to go to about six middle schools where there have been problems on buses.
She said bad behavior became so common on certain MTA buses leaving schools that the transportation agency began to regularly assign officers to certain schools to follow buses on the route. When students realized an MTA officer was nearby, they were less likely to act out, Holman said.
"We were babysitting instead of solving crimes," she said, adding that she hopes the educational programs will help control behavior if students realize the dangers.
"I think what they told us is helpful," said Saleia Jones, a seventh-grader. "I learned that you shouldn't act up on the bus. ... Anything could distract the bus driver. [The bus] can crash."
Besides engaging in distracting behavior, in the past students have climbed out emergency exits on the roof and "surfed" on the top of the bus as it moved. Holman said no one has surfed this year.
"One fatality a year is enough for us to say we need to do something," she said.
