camera, and two stop-arm cameras. Jamie Warrington, transportation services director for the School District
of Manatee County (Florida) and Florida Association for Pupil Transportation president, noted a shift a few years ago to a completely digital Gatekeeper video system for all buses, allowing for remote viewing of on-bus events and live stream viewing for supervisors via WI-FI and cellular services.
The cost of paying more for the technological advances are factored into the district’s contract with the vendor. Warrington noted ROI as the older style video tape/hard drive removal and replacement was cum- bersome and time-consuming. He said video that may need to be
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utilized beyond the 30-day retention period is downloaded and archived locally within the department via external hard drives each supervisor maintains for videos they review and deem need to be retained instead of using the vendor’s cloud-based long- term storage solutions. Districts need to ensure they have
the right policies and safeguards in place to support privacy expecta- tions and compliance requirements, including FERPA, Monfared said.
Safeguards include:
Scan to explore maintenance tools
• Role-based access controls • Audit trails • Secure evidence sharing • Automatic backups • Strong cybersecurity protections
• End-to-end encryption • Secure cloud transmission • Multi-factor authentication • Role-based permissions • Chain-of-custody tracking • Secure evidence export • Regular software and firmware update
• Who may access recordings and under what circumstances
• Retention policies •
Privacy agreements “As these systems continue to
evolve, the key challenge for districts will be balancing rapid access to crit- ical evidence, long-term operating costs, cybersecurity, and privacy— all while ensuring the technology remains simple enough for trans- portation staff to manage effectively,” Scott said. ●
36 School Transportation News • SEPTEMBER 2026
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