Karen Klein, Bullied New York Bus Monitor, Retiring With Help Of $700,000 Fund

By Tom Herrmann | July 30 2012 12:54 PM

The now famous bullied school bus monitor, Karen Klein has announced that she will be retiring after three years of service. ABC News reports that Klein claims her decision to leave her job has nothing to do with bullying.

USA Today

Karen Klein, the bullied school bus monitor has announced her retirement after receiving $700,000 in donations from a fund set up after she was tormented by four school boys.

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"I'm not quitting because of what happened. That's not it," Klein said from her home in Greece, NY, a suburb of Rochester. "I enjoyed working with the kids. But I guess it's my time to leave. That's what I've decided."

Since the YouTube video depicting a virbal assault on Klein by four seventh grade boys went viral, over $700,000 has been raised for the bullied bus monitor from a fundraiser started by Max Sidorov on Indiegogo.com, according to USA Today. The campaign "Lets Give Karen -- the bus monitor -- H Klein a Vacation!" only had a goal of $5 thousand; but exceeded it with donations from all 50 states and over 84 countries.

"I think that people just love rallying around a great cause, especially helping someone in need or who has been abused or can't stand up for themselves," Sidorov said to USA Today in a phone interview. "Hopefully we can do a lot greater and bigger things stemming from what happened to Karen,"

The video shows Klein being taunted by school children, saying things like, "Maybe she is an elephant." "She's gonna pick out which kid she's gonna rape next." "Karen wants herpes." "F**king hearing aid." "I'll egg your house." "What's your address so I can p*ss all over your door." "I'll f**king take a cr*p in your mouth." "You touched her arm flap. It's all stinky and smelly." "What size bra are you? Triple sag?" "She probably eats deodorant because she can't afford real food," as noted in the vidoe's description. Klein is tormented by the kids for ten minutes, with her crying toward the end.

In response to the bullying, the Greece School District has suspended the four boys involved in the video for a year, along with giving them 50 hours of community service with senior citizens and being enrolling them in a bullying prevention program. The school district also released a statement on their website, saying "We will continue our ongoing bullying prevention and awareness training to ensure that incidents like this do not occur in the future."

When Klein was asked how she felt about the punishment, she said "It's fine with me," according to the Huffington Post. The bullied bus monitor also added that she was glad that the boys would be attending alternative school, and that the best thing about the punishment ""is that they have to do community service - for senior citizens."