RI Mother Raises Concerns About Lack of School Bus Monitors — Told She Should Do It Herself
Thursday, September 23, 2021
A mother in Rhode Island is raising questions about her first and second graders being on a school bus without a monitor as required by state law.
At the beginning of September, Alexis Santoro contacted Cumberland school officials when she was concerned that her children and along with other students had to cross a busy road — in front of the bus — without a monitor at their bus stop.
According to Santoro, who provided emails to GoLocal — she was told she could “train to become a monitor” in light of the shortage of workers.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST“Excuse me, I have a job. This is their responsibility,” said Santoro, of the response from the Cumberland School Department.
While school officials claim they have obtained the necessary variances to the Rhode Island law that requires monitors to be on each bus, Santoro is questioning why the district can’t make an adjustments to keep children safe and limit the number of students who have to cross busy roads.
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Santoro first raised the issue in an email on September 1 to Cumberland school officials.
“Each year there has been a bus monitor/crossing guard for the bus when the bus has stopped at this location since pound road has a lot of blind spots and cars fly around the corner,” wrote Santoro. “In 2019, the bus stop was moved to the corner of Windsong and Goldstar for the safety of the little children. This year, it was set back to the corner of Windsong and Pound for some reason, however, there is no bus monitor/crossing guard, so the children are required to cross this busy and poorly visible street with oncoming traffic coming towards them.”
“I am requesting the bus stop be moved into the neighborhood, [and] the bus drive around so the kids do not have to cross the road or a bus monitor/crossing guard be assigned to the bus,” said Santoro.
In subsequent emails, school officials told Santoro that the bus stop was safe — and would not be moved in light of the lack of monitors.
Moreover, Santoro said she was told by a Cumberland School Department staffer that Superintendent Phil Thornton said she should go get trained to be a bus monitor if she was so concerned.
“To have your staff person call me and inform me that you believe that the bus driver could see fine from the bus — not requiring the need for a bus monitor — and that you suggest that I get trained to be a bus monitor and monitor the bus each day is disturbing,” wrote Santoro.
“In the pandemic bus monitors are very difficult to find,” Thornton replied in an email. “We continue to try and find more monitors. I did relay to Ms. Walton in transportation that if any parent at the stop would be willing, we would train and compensate them.”
In an email to GoLocal, Thornton said that Cumberland is indeed experiencing a bus monitor shortage — but is in compliance with Rhode Island law.
“Cumberland is experiencing a bus monitor shortage. We have raised the wage for the position and continue to advertise and spread the word for the need,” said Thornton, noting there are 13 open positions.”
“The District completes the process outlined by RIDE for reporting the percentage of bus monitors on K-5 buses,” he added. “Each month an electronic submittal is sent to RIDE’s data hub outlining the total number of bus runs and the percent of those runs with bus monitors on them.”
RIDE did not respond to request for comment at time of publication as to how many districts do not have the required bus monitors on elementary school buses.
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