District Administration - July 2007 - (Page 28)

SECURITY eﬀorts to maintain decorum and prevent disaster on the school bus, high-tech ﬁrms have responded by introducing technologies, from camera surveillance systems— both inside and outside the bus—to a school bus radio network that features age-appropriate music and public-service messages promoting school bus safety. George Taylor, the transportation director for the Kansas City, Kan., Public Schools, says the district is now replacing VCR cameras on its buses with a digital camera system, providing what Taylor calls a “night-and-day diﬀerence in quality.” The system is primarily designed to help maintain discipline on the bus— and, of course, to identify unruly students. Taylor says there have been cases, for example, of students throwing water bottles at the bus driver. “In that case, it A GPS unit is installed in a school bus bulkhead. be applied in other ways, some of them designed to enhance safety and security on the bus. A GPS system can track how fast a bus is traveling and how often it comes to a stop, including whether it has made the nario such as a kidnapping? “We could at least track where they are in relation to where we think they might be going,” Taylor says, “and make any decisions we’d have to make in response to the situation.” Call it high-tech peace of mind. Taking Threats Seriously Although school safety experts such as Mike Martin, president of the National Association of Pupil Transportation, based in Albany, N.Y., insist they do not want to inspire panic about the potential threat to school bus security, they believe that administrators should take the threat seriously. In 2005, Martin says, three leading organizations focused on school bus safety—the National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services, the National Association of Pupil Transportation, and the National School Transportation Association—requested that the federal Department of Homeland Security provide funding to improve the security of the nation’s school buses. In a memo prepared in advance of a meeting with oﬃcials from the Transportation Security Administration, the organizations wrote: “As TSA testiﬁed before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in June 2004, ‘Without consistent application of reasonable and prudent security measures across modes, we risk creating weak links that may drive terrorism from one mode to another.’ Through FY 04, the airline industry had District Administration “If parents want to know when a bus will be at a particular stop, we can talk to the driver, get an estimate, and tell the constituent their precise location.” —George Taylor, transportation director, Kansas City, Kan., Public Schools could have been a safety issue if it knocked the driver out or incapacitated him in any way,” Taylor says. GPS Takes Lead But the high-tech tool that might provide administrators with the most potential security safeguards may be global positioning satellite, or GPS. While GPS is not a new technology, its use on school buses has grown substantially since September 11, 2001, largely because it enables districts to track instantly the location of any school bus at any time of day. The system typically works by transmitting data via satellite from computer hardware installed on the bus to a secure Web site at a district’s transportation oﬃce. Although districts most commonly use GPS to schedule bus routes and monitor the movement of its ﬂeet, the technology can 28 July 2007 legally required stop at a railroad crossing. Through a process known as “fencing,” it can establish a virtual parameter for each bus route and send an alert any time a bus ventures outside those limits. It can monitor each vehicle’s gas mileage and provide diagnostic information that can inform a transportation director when a bus needs, say, a new fan belt or more transmission ﬂuid. If a bus collides with another vehicle, the GPS can be used to help reconstruct the accident. And in the event of an emergency, the system comes with a “panic button” that a bus driver could use to alert the district’s transportation oﬃce. “If parents want to know when a bus will be at a particular stop, we can talk to the driver, get an estimate, and tell the constituent their precise location,” Taylor says. And what about a truly worst-case sce-

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - July 2007

Contents
Editor’s Letter
Letters
News Update
Facilities/Construction Update
Curriculum Update
Inside the Law
Administrator Profile
District Profile
Cover Story: Rethinking School Bus Safety
Broadening Collective Bargaining
Searching for Subs
Jersey City’s Broad Appeal
Improving Nutrition in Schools
New Products
Computer Literature
How Well Does This Web Site Work?
Research Corner
Problem Solution
Online Edge
Speaking Out
Supervisor’s Opinion
Calendar of Events
Understanding the Times

District Administration - July 2007