A fifth-grade student at KIPP Morial in New Orleans East was repeatedly punched by an older classmate on the ride home from school on October 30, according to his mother, who says the attack followed weeks of bullying that school staff never addressed. Dionne Conerly, the 33-year-old mother of fifth grader Karmelo McCoi, said she learned about the assault only after a video of it began circulating on social media the following Tuesday night.
Video Spread Fast Before Being Taken Down
The footage of the beating racked up about 40,000 views in just 20 minutes before the person who posted it deleted it at Conerly's request, according to reporting by The Lens. Conerly told the outlet that Karmelo and the older student, whom she believes is in seventh or eighth grade, exchanged words before the bus even left school, and that the older student punched her son repeatedly once they were underway. The bus driver alerted a school dean, who boarded the bus to investigate but did not remove either student, per the same account.
Karmelo told his mother he had already reported the older student's behavior to a teacher during the morning bus ride, and that the teacher issued only a verbal warning at lunchtime. Conerly said the bullying had continued for weeks without school intervention, and that the school never notified her about any of it before the video surfaced.
Mother Confronts School, Questions Response
Conerly spoke with KIPP Morial officials on Wednesday morning and asked why both children weren't removed from the bus and their parents called, the outlet's report notes. School officials reportedly told her the incident did not seem like a big deal. KIPP Morial ultimately offered the older student four days of suspension, and the student did not attend school the day after the video began circulating; under NOLA Public Schools guidelines cited in the report, a suspended child may return to school after a parent-teacher conference.
Conerly said Karmelo now feels embarrassed and humiliated and does not want to return to school. She is considering contacting the New Orleans Police Department and said she would like the older student to face charges. She also told the outlet she is concerned the bullying could escalate further as the video keeps circulating on social media.
Bus Company and KIPP Both Silent
Hammond's Transportation, which provides school buses for KIPP New Orleans, did not respond to a request for information from the reporters, according to the same report. KIPP New Orleans spokesperson Ashley Daniels-Hall provided a statement saying the school was aware of the incident, had reviewed the bus footage and took such incidents seriously. The Hammond's Transportation owner reportedly told Conerly he had been informed both children were removed from the bus, and separately said he had been told the incident happened over a month earlier — details that conflict with Conerly's own account of what happened and when.
KIPP New Orleans Schools' 2023-24 student and family handbook includes a transportation policy section. The handbook.
A Long History of Bus Safety Concerns in New Orleans
Charter schools in New Orleans are required to provide yellow-bus transportation from home for enrolled students, and KIPP says it provides bus transportation within Orleans Parish. New Orleans parents have previously demanded that bus monitors ride along with children following earlier bus-related incidents, and some schools have responded to bus misbehavior by temporarily banning students from buses.
Bus safety has drawn scrutiny in New Orleans for over a decade. A 2014 report from The Lens found that the city's roughly 40 charter groups individually contracted with Hammond's and other private bus companies, with schools that year budgeting about $30 million for transportation, up from roughly $18 million in the 2004-05 school year — prompting city officials and educators to discuss centralizing school transportation to improve safety and cut costs. A separate WWL-TV investigation found that a city administrator estimated roughly 40 percent of buses failed safety inspections at the time, with only 39 buses fully passing new city standards that covered more than 350 buses serving over 75 charter schools; that investigation followed findings of unsafe buses and falsified insurance documents.
The stakes of bus safety have proven fatal before. The Lens reported that Akili Academy first grader Shaud Wilson died after being hit by a car while running across a four-lane street to reach his bus stop, and the very next day, a car struck and injured Paul Habans Charter School third grader Desean Denis after he got off a Hammond's bus and began crossing a residential street. More recently, a FOX 8 report from August 2025 described a bus monitor sent to the emergency room with multiple injuries, including bite marks, after an alleged altercation with a McDonogh 35 student and her mother that reportedly began over bus seating; InspireNOLA Charter Schools said at the time it was investigating and that student and staff safety remained a top priority.
