SPECIAL REPORT
Nicole Kiser, transportation supervisor for Canton City School District in Ohio, reviews video.
Eye on Safety
School bus video requires frequent review and developing processes to hold staff accountable Written By Debbie Curtis
S
tandard operating procedures—or the utter lack of them—for reviewing video vary widely from district to district, which was confirmed by STN’s latest reader survey (see Trends on page 17).
While many districts said they chose to install video
unprompted by a particular incident, the survey also shows that some schools implemented a plan only after being surprised by footage that aired on the local news, thanks to a student’s cell phone. Other districts said they were shocked when an ongoing and undetected bul- lying situation was brought to light by angry parents. Worse yet can be accusations of drivers or attendants abusing children in their care. With hours and hours of video that is collected every school day, how should school districts form a policy for video review, especially on buses that transport students with disabilities? Charles Hood, executive director of the National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services (NASDPTS), said videos can be considered to be student records, and there is a related issue of confidentiality.
18 School Transportation News • MARCH 2019 The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)
Safety Recommendation H-15-2 that was addressed to NASDPTS, the National Association for Pupil Transporta- tion and the National School Transportation Association among others, sought to encourage their members to ensure that any onboard video system provides visibility of the driver and of each occupant’s seating location, visibility forward of the vehicle, optimized frame rate, and low-light recording capability. Unfortunately, NTSB included neither guidelines nor
suggestions as to how frequently all of this video should be reviewed.
Now What Do We Do? Denver Public Schools created a video policy as a
result of the new technology that is now installed on the district’s school buses, said Executive Director of Trans- portation Nicole Portee. With cameras on the buses, she said she feels the community and schools expect a sound video policy. “The cameras are not there to catch every single thing
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