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Chief of Administrative Services Rodney Brown shared what the division is doing to increase school bus safety during the Suffolk School Board’s meeting on April 24. The discussion was added to the agenda by Vice Chair Sean McGee after an incident last month when a five-year-old student was let off at the wrong bus stop two and a half miles from her home. 

“This incident that took place, we did have protocols,” Brown said, “ and there was an error.”

The protocols in place state any transfer of a pre-K or kindergarten student must be hand-to-hand, something that “is not an option,” Brown said.

Students also have a bright yellow tag on their backpacks to signal they are a pre-K or kindergarten student. This is primarily so substitute drivers are aware that those students must get off the bus and go immediately with a parent or guardian.

Because of the bus stop incident, Brown said they have implemented increased safety measures.

Now, all pre-K and kindergarten students must sit in the front of the bus so the driver can see each kid get off the bus and go with a parent. Every parent must also be at their child’s bus stop, not on their porch across the street, and a memo was sent to all SPS bus drivers reminding them of these protocols. 

If a child’s parent is not at their stop, the driver should immediately notify dispatch, who will notify the school to find the parent. In that case, the driver should complete their route as normal and then drop the student off at the school, where a parent can pick them up.

For the next school year, Brown said the division is looking into using a badge system on the buses. This would involve every student having an ID badge they scan when they get on the bus. That would send an alert to the parents that their child has gotten on a specific bus at a specific time. The same thing would happen when a student gets off the bus.

Superintendent John B. Gordon III said they are looking into a quote to determine the cost of this system.