I watched the tape nearly in its entirety only because it's my job to do so. TheYoutube video stretches from more than ten uncomfortable, embrassing and insulting minutes. Adolescent boys ridicule, berate and threaten a 68 year old school bus monitor named Karen Klein. They are relentless. One off-camera voice after another tries to top the demeaning, profanity laced rant that came before. Klein appears trapped. She cries. She occassionally speaks up trying to find a teaching moment without lashing back at this horrible boys.
The Rochester suburb of Greece is known as a fairly nice area with upper middle class kids. These boys showed no sign of class at all. They are well practiced bullies with no respect for a fellow human being let alone a senior citizen. Their acts are contemptable. The announcement by the school district that they had activated their bullying task force was almost comical. Any bullying program they have has been completely ignored by this group of boys.
On the other end of the spectrum of humanity the online community that believes in what's right has stepped up to support Karen. The crowd sourced fundraising site Indiegogo hosted a fundraising effort started by a man from Toronto. The intent was to send Karen Klein off on a well deserved vacation by raising $5,000. By the end of the first day they had raised nearly $100,000. It could end up being enough money for Karen to begin her retirement.
Karen Klein will make the rounds on the morning newscasts tomorrow. Her story will continue through the week. Then she will return to her life of anonymity. Back out of the spotlight where she would prefer to live. Those boys on the other hand have punishments to face and major lessons to learn. Someone better explain the life track they're going down if the continue to act like they are better than others and somehow have the right to control people through insulting, threatening behavior.
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