TheQuartering [4/6/2023]
An Ohio school bus driver apologized after a viral TikTok video showed her verbally berating children on a bus. But she also said she “won’t take it back.”
Jackie Miller resigned from her position as a bus driver with the Amherst Exempted Village school district on March 30 after a video of her screaming at kids on the bus went viral on TikTok, garnering millions of views and shares.
“I’m sorry for the way this went down, I truly am,” Miller told WKYC on Monday. “I do apologize for my actions, but I won’t take it back.”
The video shows Miller approach a student toward the back of the bus and ask them for their perfume, to which the student responds that they “didn’t do anything” and did not “spray anything.”
“Goddamnit, how much more do you expect me to fucking take?” Miller can be heard saying in the video.
“I’m sick of all of this shit. I’m done with it. I’m going to start kicking some fucking serious ass,” she says at another point. “Do you hear me? My foot’s going to be so far up your God damn ass it’s going to dangle out your God damn nose.”
Miller said that she has asthma and that perfumes and other strong smells can trigger asthma attacks for her, according to WKYC. She said she had an attack the month before and that the kids knew this was an issue.
“She sprayed perfume on the bus and I had a horrible asthma attack,” Miller told the outlet. “I had to stop the bus, grab my inhaler and try to get my lungs to open up again. I had all the kids open up all the windows. They know this.”
According to the station, Miller has dealt with consistent misbehavior from a particular set of students on her bus for the past two years.
“That particular day was challenging to say the very least because it started the minute this core group of students got on the bus,” Miller told WKYC.
A GoFundMe account started to support Miller since her resignation has so far raised almost $50,000 at the time of publishing.
“After so many years of being treated horribly by kids, and underpaid, this bus driver was done with it and went Red Foreman on them,” the fundraiser’s page reads. “I’m on her side and if it was my kids, make ’em walk!”
Red Foreman — the fictitious and notoriously grumpy patriarch from “That 70s Show” — routinely threatened that he would “put my foot in your ass” to his mischievous children and their friends.
Amherst Village superintendent, Mike Molnar, sent out a letter to parents after the video went viral that said the school district had accepted Miller’s resignation and would be investigating the situation, Molnar told Insider. He also said the district’s transportation department would “review its procedures” moving forward in the letter.