equipment and, most importantly, people—not just students, but bus drivers, attendants and motoring public.” Te technology “greatly reduces our turnaround time when we have an accident to
review or serious accusation about a student or bus staff.” When a district bus is involved in an accident, video is preserved to corroborate written reports and testimony. Te system also exonerates drivers who become the target of student accusations, further reducing a district’s legal exposure. “In past years, it was really whatever Johnny went home and told his parents. Te video has bailed out the drivers more often than not,” Cassidy said.
He said that he values the technology’s
return on investment, which comes from reduced time investigating and resolving on-bus conflicts or outside incidents. It starts with the knowledge that the cameras are rolling. First and foremost, Cassidy added, video cameras act as a deterrent. From 2010 to 2013, he said that the district saw a 25-percent reduction in the number of referrals written by drivers, and that coincided with the implementation of the video camera program. “If an administrator sees something on video, he still has to give the student his due process, but he doesn’t have to pull other kids out of class or bring in the driver,” Cassidy said. “We’re preserving instructional time for multiple students that, before we had the video, would have been spent in the principal’s office for an investigation.” On occasions when parents have gone
over a principal’s head to the board of education, video has provided necessary evidence to convince them that imposed consequences are going to stand. “Videos have been used for sexual misconduct, drugs and alcohol on buses and vandalism,” Cassidy said. “We have had video subpoenaed to use in court so it is a valuable piece of information. When it comes to protecting confidentiality, we put recordings on a server only the school prin- cipal and transportation director can access. If it’s subpoenaed as evidence, we can burn it onto a DVD.”
CAMERAS TELL THE TRUTH Richard Casey, director of transportation
at Bellevue Public Schools in Nebraska, said his district has benefited from a partnership with Omaha-based Radio Engineering, Inc., which resulted in the installation of video gear on 10 buses last August. “Historically, we have not put camer- as on our buses, but this was a unique opportunity for us,” Casey said. “REI is a local company, and we were discussing the number of cameras and where to place them when I said, almost in pass- ing, that I would like to catch people who are stop-arm running.” Te resulting agreement placed stop- arm cameras in five buses that REI used
54 School Transportation News • MAY 2016
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76
