NEW YORK -- A school bus driver from New Jersey has been accused of creating a hierarchy among his middle school charges that encouraged older students to bully younger ones to keep order.
"It was 'Lord of the Flies' with adult supervision," said William Smith, spokesman for Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan.
The driver, Michael Cianci, of Parlin, N.J., was arraigned Thursday on two counts of endangering the welfare of a child and released on $500 bail.
Cianci allegedly encouraged students in his so-called Death Cheese Club -- supposedly named for the yellow school bus -- to use headlocks on other students and push them around, beginning about three months ago, Smith said.
Authorities said the 38-year-old driver called himself The Emperor and used "Star Wars" characters like Jabba the Hutt to encourage his charges to follow storylines from the movie, resulting in children pummeling each other and cutting each other's clothes with scissors -- instead of lightsabers.
Law enforcement sources told The Daily News that Cianci said he created The Death Cheese Club to discipline the middle school children, giving them names like Darth, Sith Warrior and Jabba.
The bullying system on the bus was brought to the attention of authorities after a student cut the jacket of another student with scissors and Cianci allegedly failed to report it.
Cianci also allegedly forced sixth graders from Intermediate School 34 in Tottenville to recite a set of "rules" -- a 12-tiered ranking system that ended with a proclamation that "Mercy will not be tolerated."
Smith said there was no explanation as to why the students did not report the bullying system sooner.
The first complaint came on Jan. 17 when the parents of the 11-year-old boy whose jacket was cut reported it to school authorities, Smith said. The parents of another 11-year-old boy filed a complaint at around the same time when their son told them of ongoing harassment on the bus in the form of headlocks and shoving.
Smith said there were no direct threats against any of the students beyond the "rules" the driver posted that set a pecking order on the bus.
The Department of Education said Cianci was suspended without pay. It said he has been a certified bus driver for 15 years and had no prior complaints against him.
"Lord of the Flies," first published in 1954, is a novel about a group of boys trapped on an island after a plane crash. The youths in the tale split into factions and one group attacks the other.
© 2006 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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