BY DARRELL HALEN

Troublemakers, beware: there will be another “set of eyes” on your school bus.

The Windham School Board has voted to spend $14,600 to install video cameras and recording devices on all 17 buses and four mini buses that Laidlaw, the bus company, uses in Windham.

By doing so, board members hope to ensure student safety and maintain discipline.

“We’ve had a concern about bullying,” School Board member Barbara Coish said recently. “It appears a large amount of it happens on buses.”

According to a school district policy that’s been drafted, signs and notices in student handbooks will alert students that all actions on buses may be recorded.

The recordings, however, will not include sound. Superintendent Frank Bass told School Board members in July that including audio brings up a “whole new layer” of considerations and concerns.

“That whole audio issue is very murky ground from a legal point of view and ascertaining who said what, and what was really said,” Bass said.    

Video recordings will serve as a deterrent to mischief, Roxanne Wilson, the assistant school superintendent, told board members.

“You have it as a back up,” she said. “For 90 percent of the cases, you don’t need it. For the 10 percent that you do, it does help an administrator, I think, do their job.”

Bruce Anderson, a School Board member, noted that using cameras can help in potential situations more serious than kids picking on each other – such as an estranged parent who attempts to kidnap their child from a bus.

The decision to put cameras on buses was supported by Coish, Anderson, Al Letizio Jr. and Beth Valentine.

Beverly Donovan voted against doing so.

Donovan said she is concerned that, as policy is currently written, recordings would be erased after only 10 school days unless a request was made to obtain them. Donovan said sometimes bullying does not get immediately reported, and school officials may not become aware of a situation until after 10 days has passed.

“Probably a majority of the bullying incidents are verbal in nature,” she said. “A video recording is not going to capture that. Realistically, how much is this going to do for us? It’s a nice thing to have, it’s not a bad thing. I don’t know if it’s a necessary thing.”

According to Wilson, the school district can use some Safe and Drug Free Schools grant money to cover the equipment cost.

The school board receives reports on bullying incidents from principals each month. Information includes the nature of the incidents.

“There appears to be one bus that has more problems than the others,” Coish said.