Clark County Police have investigated two assaults that took place during August after aggressive behavior from both students and parents resulted in violent actions against bus drivers. Consequently, several bus drivers have voiced their concerns about the difficulty of the job.

For CCSD bus driver Ramón Maravilla, while he’s been fortunate enough not to have been the victim of any attacks, he’s still cautious of potential violence that could happen to him.

“I am concerned at times of what can go wrong. You never know what intentions parents or kids can have,” Maravilla said. “These attacks can happen to anyone. It’s best to always have your guard up.”

Although the motives behind these assaults are still unknown, some bus drivers believe it’s because of students not facing the consequences of their actions.

“It’s acceptable behavior they have learnt from their parents and peer pressure plays a role,” driver Joseph Heat said. “Mostly [it’s a] lack of understanding that we’re here to provide a safe environment for their commute. It’s clear that parents do not speak highly of bus drivers in general, or there would not be the issues that exist.”

These attacks not only concern the school bus drivers, but school administration as well.

“There’s just too much violence right now,” Principal Donna Levy said. “Everybody is just very angry and I’m not sure why. We need to talk to each other, not just yell at each other.”

The overall increase in violence has allowed the administration to explain why they run the school this way.

“The violence, there’s just no good reason for it,” Levy said. “We run a pretty tight ship for that reason because if we keep the little infractions down we’re hoping someone will think twice about a bigger infraction. We practice restorative justice.”

Additionally, students have also expressed their concern regarding the attacks.

“There are some people in my bus that are very disrespectful towards my bus driver,” sophomore Alize Quiroz said. “It gets extremely annoying and I don’t know why people treat their bus drivers like this. It honestly makes the environment on the bus a lot more hostile.”

CCSD has made a statement regarding the issue and how they plan to resolve it.

“CCSD will not tolerate any violence against its employees,” CCSD said in a statement. “The District has been proactive in releasing information to the public and working with law enforcement to seek out prosecution in these two situations.”