He noted that student-on-student bullying and student and parent behavior in general has been a growing prob- lem, which is harder to combat now with social media. “Since we came back from the pandemic it’s been a real
challenge,” he said. “I do think it has leveled off over the past two and a half to three years, it’s leveled off compared to what it was, when we first opened back up from being closed from a pandemic. But it is still a major issue. And quite frankly, it’s probably more that contributing to the driver shortage than it is wages and benefits.”
All Types of Video Footage Florida’s Hart added that another piece of the puzzle
is students filming fights and posting them on social media. She said while there is a policy on the bus that prohibits students from taking pictures or videos, and states their personal devices are only to be used for lis- tening to music or quietly talking to their parents if they need to, it’s hard to enforce. Hart noted that Escambia has cameras in all buses, so
if students are doing something they shouldn’t, ad- ministrators can see it. She noted that the video is not a matter of public record according to the state statute, so it’s not released to the media. However, the district does blur other students’ faces if parents need to view the
behavior of their child. Jones in Texas said his district is in the middle of a $1.5 million upgrade to redo all the camera systems on their buses so that they have better coverage. He said the cameras provide protection in terms of administration being able to see exactly what happens on the bus and hold the kids accountable. The new camera systems will include at least five cameras inside of the bus to elimi- nate driver blind spots. “If something happens on the bus, we will be able to see accurately what happened,” he said. Jones, however, agreed that cell phones are a constant
challenge, even in terms of crashes. He explained that in some circumstances parents will know about an inci- dent on the bus before administration does, sometimes before bus drivers even have time to radio dispatch. “So far, we haven’t found a solution that that speeds
up our process,” he said. “The drivers still initiate a call to dispatch to let them know what’s happened. Now one thing that we do, is empower our drivers that if there’s a problem getting through to dispatch and they need to call 911, to go ahead and do that.” He explained that bus drivers originally felt like they
couldn’t call 911, but Jones said in a true emergency, that’s changed. Another new implementation is Transfinder’s
QUAL IT Y MAT TERS
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