Northern Lehigh School District has cautioned drivers to be safe when traveling near school buses.

The school board recently heard a presentation on the district’s School Safety, Social Emotional Learning and School Climate Data.

As part of the review, the board heard reports at each of the building levels.

Police department

Superintendent Dr. Matthew J. Link said a snapshot of data was collected from Chief David Jones and his team of three officers in the district.

“We’ve had a number of fights this year unfortunately, and also some extreme noncompliance,” Link said. “Some criminal mischief as well, that could be various things that fall into that category as determined by the school police officers.”

Link added they’ve had four incidents of drugs, and then tobacco.

“Keep in mind that drugs can be not just like the vapes; typically the vapes are categorized as tobacco, kids aren’t really bringing in traditional cigarettes anymore, it’s the vapes,” he said. “Sometimes unfortunately those vapes will contain THC, which will then also qualify as drug infraction.”

Link noted they also had three citations for truancy, total of citations this year is 23.

He said the data is data that comes directly from the Safe2Say reporting system. Safe2Say is a platform put out by the Attorney General’s Office where students, community members, parents can put an anonymous tip into the Safe2Say platform.

“So, we have a number of administrators and all of our school police officers are recipients of those tips if the attorney general’s office believes they need to forward them to us and then they will kind of prioritize those tips as to whether we need to take immediate action because it could be like a life safety issue or if it’s something that hey we need to get these students in by the end of the day and have a conversation with them, whatever the topic may be.”

This year so far, Link said the district has had 20 tips.

“Our highest frequency is again the smoking, whether it’s tobacco or vapes,” he said. “It’s almost always a vape, as well as kind of other, where this is where they don’t really now how to qualify it when it comes to us from the state Attorney General’s Office so they just qualify it as other.”

Bus patrol data

New this year is bus patrol data, Link said.

“As you’re aware we’ve implemented bus patrol on our school buses this school year,” he said. We’ve had 39 notifications, that is where the cameras actually trigger, and then a notification is sent to Chief Jones for review,” he said. “Of those 39 notifications, 32 of them were clear citations, where we actually did issue a citation because drivers did not follow the school stop sign law, and when that stop sign was out and the stop arm was out and the 8-way red flashers were on, they still drove by the bus, so now we have a system in place where we have video and picture of evidence of that vehicle and they’re all reviewed by Chief Jones and then if he deems them as a clear citation he then issues a citation to the owner of that vehicle.”

Directors concerns

“I am surprised that we have that many citations,” Link said. “I did not think we would have that many citations for bus patrol.”

Link noted that Chief Jones has invited him to review a few of them with him or actually come and see what it looks like.

“It’s disheartening that many of our drivers, and I will say it’s not just Northern Lehigh drivers by any means; please keep in mind that a good number of our vehicles go outside the footprint of Northern Lehigh School District, so some of these citations could be occurring outside of Slatington, outside of Walnutport, outside of Washington Township depending where that school bus is going,” he said. “Sometimes the stop signs are out, the stop arm is out and the 8-way red flashers are on for four, five seconds and the vehicle just doesn’t even slow down and it just drives right by that school bus.

“This, along with just communication that please be aware of our school buses; it our children, it’s your children, it’s our students, it’s our bus drivers, our bus aides, you need to be aware of when you see that school bus stopping or even slowing down, you yourself as a driver need to be ready to stop as well.

Director Chad Christman asked what the mandatory minimum fine is.

Link said it’s a mandatory $300 fine.

Christman then asked if someone is a second or third-time offender, whether there was any license suspension, or just a fine every time.

Jones said it’s just a fine every time because the citation goes to the owner of the vehicle and not the driver per se, and added there’s no suspension.

“Bus patrol did say it’s a very low occurrence rate, within the single percentile,” Jones said.

Christman expressed displeasure.

“I’m frustrated to see there’s so many,” Christman said. “But at least now there’s finally some consequences.”

Jones said another good thing is “we can see where the problem areas are.”

Director Gary Fedorcha noted that it’s all school districts, not just Northern Lehigh.

“The idea of being able to have the cameras in and actually (sending) citations is really a good idea,” Fedorcha said.

Link concurred with Fedorcha’s sentiment.

“Unfortunately these infractions occur in all school districts,” Link said. “But not all school districts have bus patrol.”

Director Robert Kern was optimistic that safety changes can be made to curtail the number of incidents.

“I feel like the fact that it’s giving us more data to make safety changes like moving from an intersection,” Kern said. “I think that’s really important as well.”