LAURINBURG — Students safety is always the No. 1 concern for the school system, which is why an improved camera system will be put into Scotland County Schools’ 62 buses.
According to Larry Obeda, Scotland County Schools executive director of auxiliary services, the schools are currently finalizing the project and hope for it to be completed by March.
The current bus cameras have begun to malfunction and there is only one located in the bus, while the new system will allow for a view of the entire bus and will show the outside of the bus as well.
The cameras on the outside of the bus are something for extra safety for the students, as there have been many reports, not just in Scotland County but across the countr, of motorist illegally going around a bus — some of which have killed students.
“We have to take a close look at our kids and what’s the best thing for them,” Obeda said. “A unique feature with the camera system will be with the buses that have wifi … an administrator will be able to view the cameras live.”
Once the cameras are installed, every time a vehicle goes around the bus illegally, the incident will be reported to the police with the license plate number.
The schools have also implemented three buses that have an elongated stop sign arm to ensure traffic is stopped on both sides, according to Director of Transportation Julius Dockery.
“We’ve had issues on Plaza Road with people running through the stop signs,” Dockery said. “Since we’ve added them we haven’t gotten calls about that road. If we have places that are having issues we’ll rotate the buses in.”
According to Scotland County Schools Public Information officer Meredith Bounds, the cameras that are already on the bus have been a large deterrent from students acting up. Bounds also said that more than three-quarters of students will take a bus during the year whether it being just to school, from school, or both.
One thing that officials have noticed have helped decrease the disciplinary actions on the buses has been the wifi. There are 40 buses that have wifi which allows students to do work or look at social media sites during their ride home. The wifi does have the same firewall as that at the school which has restrictions on what sites students can go on.
“We’ve looked at the data from the buses and students are going to our learning system, Canvas,” Bounds said. “The kids are on their devices doing their work and there’s been a sharp decrease in disciplinary actions on the buses.”
From the data collected Canvas was No. 1 while social media sites came in at number five showing that students are doing what officials had hoped they would do with the wifi.
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