Security expert Bret E. Brooks speaks to attendees March 27, 2026, day one of STN EXPO East in Concord, North Carolina.
duce the likelihood of fights occurring, Burgess noted. Brooks noted today’s school bus video camera sys- tems should incorporate some form of AI to supplement human review. “AI is the future and when combined with cameras can
be highly effective,” he said. “Current systems used to identify weapons and aggressive behavior is underper- forming. AI is not able to properly ID knives. It is about 50-50 on detecting concealed weapons. The human element is still necessary.” Brooks said training on concealed weapon identifica-
tion and indicators of violence are critical. “Drivers need to be able to see these types of things themselves and not be reliant on AI,” he said. “This is imperative as our research shows the number of active shooters in schools are getting to school via the school bus, which is a shift from the past. School bus drivers can literally stop an active shooter before they get to school, if they know what to look for.” AI-driven video systems enhance safety programs by automating the review and contextualization of high
42 School Transportation News • MAY 2026
volumes of footage, helping transportation leaders focus on actionable events rather than manually scanning hours of video, said Craig Berndt, Geotab business seg- ment manager for people transportation. “Traditional human review requires staff to lo-
cate, watch and interpret footage events by event—a time-intensive process introducing variability and potential oversight,” Berndt added. “AI-based systems, by contrast, can automatically surface relevant safety events, associate them with driver and vehicle data, and prioritize review based on risk.” Policies addressing how school bus assaults should be
handled differ vastly throughout the U.S. School district policies around driver or monitor intervention during fights should start with a clear priority: The safe opera- tion of the vehicle. Lori Jetha, Safe Fleet marketing vice president, said technology can support this approach by enabling real-time awareness. From Safe Fleet’s perspective, effective policy balances
real-time awareness with appropriate human response, Jetha added, noting the ability to look beyond single
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