On Monday afternoon, the Thompson R2J Transportation Department, formally responded to the concerns being expressed by parents over the actions and behavior of the bus driver on Drake Route #4, Bus 1061.    

Nansi Crom, Director of Thompson R2J Transportation stated, "We are aware of the issues and concerns of the parents and are working toward resolving them."   

One of the major concerns was the discretionary turning on and off of school bus security cameras by the driver. This constitutes a gross failure in the bus security. For example, let's say the driver turns off the camera for whatever reason and has to go back to stop a student problem in the rear of the bus. Should that student possess a weapon and injure the driver or another student, all critical evidence of the incident and how it transpired, would be lost.    

This is admittedly an extreme example, but clearly it demonstrates the need for uninterrupted surveillance during bus operation. Otherwise the taxpayer dollars spent to purchase and install the cameras was a complete waste. You can cite hundreds of scenarios like the one above where the camera being turned off results in a loss of evidence and failure of the system.   

In response to the camera issue Director Crom stated, "We understand the concerns and are currently changing our system to allow the driver to have enough tape to record the full bus route. The driver has to turn the camera on and off right now to allow enough tape to record the route".   

We at SMN strongly feel that if security cameras are to be used, that they should be used properly and on the entire time the bus is running, from the starting of to turning off of the engine.   

Parent's have also stated that when they ask to review the tapes of a day when a driver related incident occurred, they are told that the tapes have been erased, the camera was not on at the time, or that they cannot view the tapes for confidentiality reasons. The Transportation Director stated that all tapes are available for viewing by the parents should their child be directly involved in an incident, however they would not allow viewing otherwise due to confidentiality laws.    

Larimer County Sheriff's Department was also asked about the right of parents to view the tapes and stated, "The tapes from the bus are public record". We would tend to agree with the Sheriff's Department in that any documentation, including video tapes, made in the normal operation of a public entity, and funded by public tax dollars, and not a national security risk, would indeed be of public record and not covered under confidentiality laws.  As this is a touchy and legally technical area, in most instances a court judge has the final say in these types of issues.