Staff responded properly after student brandishes BB gun on bus, WVSSPA finds
BECKLEY, WV (WVNS) — The incoming secretary of a state association for school service workers said Raleigh County bus drivers followed protocol correctly to keep kids safe in what could have been bad situations onboard two district school buses earlier in the week.
Mary Keene, the incoming secretary for the West Virginia School Service Personnel Association (WVSSPA) said on Friday, April 26, 2024, that she’d driven a school bus for 27 years and had never encountered an incident involving any type of gun on district school buses.
She said she did not have an answer as to whether protocol could be changed to make buses safer for drivers and students.
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“I really don’t have an answer to that,” said Keene. “I mean, anything could happen. We just deal with it as it comes, and we have training, and that training kicks in when it happens.”
Keene said school buses are linked to Raleigh County Emergency Operations Center and that the two bus drivers had alerted 911 workers immediately, each time the same expelled student entered two separate school buses carrying what drivers and students believed was a handgun.
Beckley Police Department officials reported the weapon was an Air Soft gun, which resembled a handgun and shot plastic BB pellets.
Raleigh County School Service Personnel Association representative Chris Toney, who is also a West Virginia delegate, issued a statement on Thursday evening.
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“We often hear about incidents like this happening in other places, but it’s never one we would ever dream we would face,” Toney said. “On two separate days, and on two different buses, our drivers were faced with incredible safety concerns involving a weapon. Our drivers responded appropriately and handled the situation skillfully.”
Toney said the bus drivers’ examples “should be an example to all within school and district leadership, parents and families, and the community-at-large (that) violence of any kind will not be tolerated and those responsible will be handled accordingly.”
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