With four fewer school bus routes than last year and
increasingly crowded buses, school bus drivers are relying on a few
technological tools to keep the peace.
Gilroy
With four fewer school bus routes than last year and increasingly crowded buses, school bus drivers are relying on a few technological tools to keep the peace.
Gilroy school bus driver Rebecca Scheel just has to point to the camera mounted above her head to hush a rowdy busload of students.
“Since we got the cameras four years ago, there have been a lot less problems because the kids know they’re on tape,” she said. “The cameras have made a huge difference.”
Scheel said the installation of cameras, along with a contract with a national radio network called BusRadio, has brought the district’s transportation department into the 21st century, and has made dealing with dozens of unruly schoolchildren while maneuvering her behemoth vehicle more manageable.
BusRadio, a Massachusetts-based company, reaches more than 10,000 buses in 160 school districts across the country. The programming includes three segments, each targeted at a different age group. When Scheel picks up her Rucker Elementary School students, she hits the ‘elementary’ button on her radio and the next hour of programming includes about 56 minutes of music, public service announcements, contests and safety messages peppered with about four minutes of commercials targeted at an elementary school audience.
The service comes at no cost to the district. The equipment, installation and programming are compliments of BusRadio. But instead of paying money, districts provide BusRadio with hundreds of captive listeners.
“It’s cool,” said Cody Lucas, a fourth grader at Rucker, shrugging indifferently in his seat at the back of the bus. “But they play the same stuff all the time.”
“I’d rather listen to KDON,” he said of the Salinas-based radio station.
“And we hate those,” he said, pointing to the camera at the front of the bus. “It’s weird because it’s like it’s staring at us.”
Scheel has never had to review the tape to settle a discipline issue but the cameras’ mere presence has a calming effect on the students, she said. Driver Mora Taormino agreed.
“I’ve never had to check my camera but it’s comforting to know it’s there,” she said.
Since BusRadio and cameras were introduced, Scheel said the number of discipline citations has shrunk significantly.
“We used to have a huge stack of tickets,” she said. “Now we only have a few a year.”
Though districts in Maryland, Florida, Massachusetts and Kentucky pulled the plug on BusRadio after vociferous parents protested advertisements geared specifically for their children’s ears, Gilroy drivers said the advantages of the programming outweigh the bad.
“Parents have complained about other stations,” Scheel said. “On BusRadio, there’s no bad language. The kids love it.”
In contrast to KDON, which many students said they preferred, BusRadio steers away from songs with profanity for younger students and edits out curse words on programming for older riders.
“I really like BusRadio,” said Carly Thompson, a sixth grader at Ascencion Solorsano Middle School, looking up from the book she was reading while the program’s perky disc jockeys, Mat and Lucia, talked up an Alvin and the Chipmunks contest and delivered bus safety instructions during a segment geared at middle schoolers. “They play the newest songs and the DJs are always entertaining to listen to.”
The students who aren’t fans usually tune out or slip in their headphones.
“They don’t play the music I like,” said Alberto Lazaro, a Solorsano eighth grader who prefers Mexican music. “There’s a lot of bad stuff about it too. They’ll cut a song off to play a commercial.”
He did agree, however, that both the radio program and the cameras quell students’ tendency to misbehave.
“If the commercials were not age appropriate, then I would have a problem,” said Jill Torrico, the mother of a Las Animas Elementary School first grader who is considering whether or not to send her son to school on the bus next year. “But I would be comfortable as long as the commercials are geared toward the appropriate age group. Kids are so savvy nowadays, they pick and choose what they listen to. It’s hard these days to control everything.”
Fellow Las Animas parent Colleen Fajardo doubted that the youngest children were even affected by the four minutes of commercials.
“It’s not really an issue,” she said. “It gets so loud on the bus sometimes, I don’t even know if my son would listen.”
