Brate was driving the bus Monday when a fight broke out between two high school females, sending one of the girls, who was pregnant, along with aide Carol Thompson to Atrium Medical Center. The second female fled the scene, and police are still looking for her.
Five of Middletown’s 51 school buses have a digital camera with footage that can be reviewed as-needed. Buses did have VHS cameras that no longer function, officials said, but it was too costly to replace them.
However, Brate said drivers maintain order, not cameras. When Monday’s fight broke out, Brate’s bus was traveling down Manchester Road toward Breiel Boulevard. As calmly as possible, she said she put her signal on, crossed lanes, hit the hazards and parked the bus before separating the two girls.
“If something’s going on, you’ve got to separate them,” she said. “You have to pay attention. It’s more than a job.”
Monday’s altercation followed an incident Friday when 15-year-old Devin Lewis had a chunk of his hair burned off by a student using a lighter on the bus. Three students were suspended for 10 days and appeared Tuesday in Butler County Juvenile Court. They have a Feb. 17 pretrial before Judge Kathleen Romans, said juvenile court Administrator Rob Clevenger.
Michael Hammond, district’s transportation supervisor, said a camera is needed in front and back to capture the full scope of a bus’s passengers.
“I think the reason we need more than one camera is because the height of the seats,” he said, adding that it’s hard to decipher what’s going on past the seventh seat with only the one camera.
A two-camera system for a 72-passenger bus with 24 seats starts at about $1,200, according to Mike Conley of Cardinal Bus Sales and Service, a dealer of Blue Bird busing products used by Middletown schools.
Edgewood and Hamilton districts have operating cameras in all of their buses.
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