To my fellow Lakewooders and beyond, Our children are our most precious possession, yet there is an aspect that I feel does not get attention.
Every day we put our children into a bus and send them on their way. For the most part, we are blessed with nice bus drivers who are good to our children and bring them to school safely every day. And I believe they deserve a tremendous amount of appreciation for what they do.
Yet there have been one too many instances where drivers have not been good to the kids, most recently 4 primary children were told by the driver they were being taken to an undisclosed location, not home. Thankfully, a man nearby heard the banging on the windows and called police. But why is this allowed? Why are our schools not pressured to put monitors on each and every bus with a means of communication?!? Why is there at least not an older child at the end of every run on the bus with a phone in case of emergency? There are phones today that have everything blocked besides parental or police contact! Why are buses not tracked as far as their location? These are our children and bus drivers are strangers to us! How many incidents will it take for schools to realize the danger of this? These are pure neshamos and we have no idea of what is going on during the routes! We spend money on so many other unnecessary things, or things we can do without, can we not find it important enough to address this?
I beg of everyone, reach it to the schools, reach out to the rabbanim and let’s ensure every child’s safety.
Sincerely, a concerned parent.
P.s. if people will say schools are strapped for cash, I am sure there are those that would be willing to dig deeper in order to protect their children, I certainly would.
(TLS welcomes your letters by submitting them to [email protected])
There are solutions you can implement such as a gps tracker in your kids briefcase, and so on.
Most companies have a tracking device and could know the location of the bus at any moment.
Bussing is free you can’t ask for much more than you’re getting. If you’re so concerned put your money where your mouth is and either hire private transportation or pick them up yourself.
The letter writer happens to have a valid point (my children’s bus have also had some pretty scary episodes with the driver) but whether you agree with him or not the tone of your reply is frankly disgusting.I would suggest some serious thought about your overall attitude.
I agree with the writer. The fact that there are no bus monitors, especially for the exclusively younger kids bus routes is ridiculous. A lot of the schools have assistants that we can pay some more to stay on the bus for the route. I would love for my school to institute that. it’s just a matter of what the school and parent body feel are a necessity vs an extra. More pressure on the schools will help.
@toby, busing is not free, government pays for it however the bus company’s definitely getting paid. why isnt it mandatory for buses to have interior and exterior cameras including GPS tracking devices so we can see where the buses are at all times and that our children are safe?
Correction, the tax payers pay for the busing, the Government just doles out the money it collects from the tax payers.
Of course it should be installed! In some neighborhoods they have cameras on the bus & can monitor everything (even when a car passes through the red flashing lights & receives tickets in the mail).
For some (obvious) reason our community doesn’t deserve it!
Just because it’s a free service it doesn’t mean it should be unsafe!
I actually have a tracker in my childs briefcase! So i dont know whats going on on the bus but at least i know where it is!
Bussing is free? Since when?
Perhaps you aren’t aware that school busing is paid by OUR (inflated) property taxes.
Very not free. Not at all.
The bigger question is where’s the board of ed? Why is there no oversight on who the bus companies hire.
They definitely should put god trackers on the bus and they should make the bus company responsible to make sure that the tracker is working every morning, so there’s no excuse that the tracker was broken.
Also, buses should have camera available at any time for the schools to monitor- either by desktop or mobile.
With this in mind, bus driver would think twice before doing something stupid.
I’m not sure what the issue is? I guess people here don’t know the laws.
Every bus that does runs through the LSTA legally needs a GPS Tracker and a dash cam inside & outside the bus.
The bus companies legally need to hand over footage to the LSTA when they request.
That being said you need to keep in mind that the GPS trackers work on mobile data which is not the most reliable lately here in Lakewood – so it can take a few minutes to refresh. Also the dash cams can malfunction from time to time since they do bump around a lot.
Hi,
A dash cam will not prevent bus drivers from saying things to kids that are inappropriate and I would imagine it can always be turned off or “broken” as well.
Were the police called???
The driver should be locked up! There are cameras on the bus and if he told them that he would take them to an undisclosed location he should be arrested!!! Please call the police. The next kids might not be so lucky! There is a serious problem with bussing. I don’t know why there is a monopoly in town but too much is being shoved under the carpet!!
Great idea. Now all you have to do is get together with all the parents of the children on your child’s bus. Find somebody willing to do the job, get together the money to pay the monitor,and make sure that he or she is acceptable to the school. Then get the monitor fingerprinted and have a criminal background check done and now your monitor is ready to go to work. Don’t forget to arrange transportation home for the monitor at the last stop. That’s all there is to it.
Relax. No-ones being taken to an undisclosed location. The driver wants to be done and go home. Chill out. Next you’ll be calling it a hate crime.