Bus safety reviewed in wake of East High student's death

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Some area school district officials say the tragedy of an East High School girl killed by a bus has led them to review bus-safety protocols.

Faith McCullough-Wooster, 14, tumbled down a hill Wednesday afternoon with another classmate on East High Avenue near the school. Faith fell into the path of a bus.

“What happened was horrific,” said Colleen Murphy, director of transportation for Austintown schools. “Parents need to consider this case — I think it was a wake-up call for all of Northeast Ohio.”

Many school districts reported they do extensive education on bus-safety protocols with their elementary students at the beginning of the school year. Murphy said she constantly gets phone calls from adults on safety questions.

“I’m never bothered to explain the rules to people,” she said. “I’d rather explain a rule 100 times in order to keep kids and community safe.”

There are multiple ways districts try to deter accidents.

Austintown Superintendent Vincent Colaluca said his district has a “positive behavior system process” in place to educate kids on proper ways to act on the bus.

He said the school district emphasizes teaching its kids bus safety in kindergarten through fifth grade.

“In the past, you simply disciplined kids for misbehaving, but we’re trying to show kids the right way to do things, like how to load a bus and how to act on a bus,” he said.

Winnie Timpson, chief of transportation for Youngstown City Schools, said students are cautioned to stay out of what’s called the “danger zone.” That’s the area 10 feet around the bus, “to the front, back and around the sides.”

“In your car you have blind spots. Well, multiply that by 10,” Timpson said.

Many people believe that since a bus driver sits up high in the bus, he or she has a better vantage point, but an entire car can be obscured in the area behind a bus’s mirror, she said.

Harry Evans, chief of operations for the city district, said students must wait until a bus comes to a complete stop and its red flashing lights come on to board or get off the vehicle. If it’s necessary to cross the street, students are to do so in front of, not behind, the bus, so they’re visible to the driver, he said.

On the bus, students are supposed to remain seated to avoid falling, not eat to avoid choking hazards and keep the noise to a minimum so as not to distract the driver, Evans said.

Students also are to remain in assigned seats. That helps the driver know which students are on the bus and what stops have to be made.

Under state law, drivers are permitted only to drop off students and pick them up at designated stops, Timpson said. Some parents, trying to pick up their children, will follow a bus, blowing the car horn, not understanding why it doesn’t stop. “By law, they’re not allowed to,” she said.

Don Mook, superintendent of the Columbiana school district, said his district met Thursday to discuss reinforcing transportation safety to students who walk to its schools.

Mook said the district already makes sure its students who walk come in and out of the schools at different locations than students who take the bus.

“We feel it’s pretty critical where kids come in and out of the school,” he said.

According to the Ohio School Boards Association, the school bus is the safest mode of transportation to school. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also reported this year that only 1 percent of student fatalities during travel to and from school occur on a school bus.

“By and large, children are safer being transported by a bus than even by their parents,” said Frank Lazzeri, Boardman superintendent. “It’s definitely safer than walking or biking.”

For students who opt to walk to class, Austintown’s Murphy said they should be more aware of safe-walking etiquette. She said she recommended students walking to class wear light-colored clothing — especially when it’s dark outside, look when crossing the streets and avoid wearing earbuds.