idaho school bus

Francis Dean/Corbis via Getty Images





Idaho motorists have reportedly been harassing buses carrying children under the age of five.

A nonprofit that owns the buses announced they're going to remove and cover up signs on the buses that read "Migrant and Seasonal Head Start."

The buses drive low-income children of migrants or agricultural workers to federally funded educational programs during the day.

Visit INSIDER's homepage for more stories.

Idaho drivers have reportedly been harassing busloads of young kids, prompting a local nonprofit to remove signs from the buses that identify the riders as children of migrant workers.

A spokesperson for the Community Council of Idaho told The Idaho Statesman that one bus driver reported experiencing threatening incidents with other drivers while she was driving a busload of children under the age of five.

"It's really heartbreaking, because they're children," spokesperson Sonnay Alvarez told the newspaper. "They don't understand what hate is."

The buses likely drew attention because they're labeled "Migrant and Seasonal Head Start," according to the nonprofit. The buses drive low-income children of migrants or agricultural workers to federally funded educational programs during the day.

Read more: The Trump administration reportedly spent months trying to make sure unauthorized immigrants couldn't go to school

school bus

Javier Renes/Shutterstock

Staff from the nonprofit suspect that the drivers mistakenly believe the buses are transporting unauthorized immigrants, but Alvarez clarified that not all migrants are in the US illegally, and some may have simply "migrated" within Idaho — not from a foreign country.

She told The Idaho Statesman that the nonprofit briefly considered renaming the program to remove the word "migrant," but that they're opting to simply cover up the label on the bus instead.

The heightened concern over the potentially discriminatory incidents come just weeks after a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, killed 22 people and injured two dozen others. The shooting suspect told authorities he was targeting "Mexicans."

Story continues

"People just shouldn't be offensive to our buses or our kids. For now, we are going to cover it up," Alvarez said.

NOW WATCH: We tried 4 different methods for creating perfect winged liner