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The Northside ISD responds to claims that Harlan High School students have sat on the bus floor because the Redbird Ranch bus route is overcrowded.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Google Maps<\/p>\n
Parents on San Antonio\u2019s Far Westside are raising safety concerns after claims that students were sitting on the floor of a moving school bus. One parent, who asked to remain anonymous to avoid retaliation against their child, tells\u00a0MySA they weren\u2019t surprised by the allegations because overcrowding has been ongoing in the area.<\/p>\n
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Under\u00a0the Texas Transportation Code<\/a>, an operator of a school bus must \u201cprohibit a passenger from standing in the bus, sitting on the floor of the bus, or in any location on the bus that is not designed as a seat.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n A post\u00a0in the Facebook group Redbird Ranch – THE COMMUNITY<\/a> renewed the discussion on Wednesday, September 30. The post drew many comments expressing frustration.<\/p>\n The post read: \u201cThought y\u2019all parents might want to know, they have our school bus riders sitting on the floor. There was a bus crash yesterday, and accidents will continue to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n The individual included two photos that appeared to have been taken inside the bus. Several people appear to be in the middle aisle. MySA reached out to the individual who posted the photos but did not receive a response in time for publication. The post also said the individual contacted the transportation department and\u00a0Harlan High School<\/a>, which is part of the Northside Independent School District.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The parent who spoke with MySA has six children in\u00a0Northside ISD, including a daughter who rides the bus route from Harlan to Redbird Ranch.<\/p>\n \u201cThree to a seat, it’s still not enough, and the bus driver won’t move the bus, obviously, if the kids are standing, so they sit down on the floor again,\u201d the parent said. \u201cIt’s obviously not safe.\u201d<\/p>\n The parent said the bus driver told their daughter that students are not allowed to sit on the floor. The driver also said students could no longer take pictures on the bus, according to the parent.<\/p>\n \u201cPretty much saying, ‘Stop snitching. You can’t take pictures. You can’t take videos. You can’t sit on the floor,’\u201d the parent said. \u201cAnd they’re like, \u2018Okay, but where do I sit? There’s nowhere to sit if I don’t sit on the floor.’\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n MySA obtained a screenshot of a complaint the parent submitted to the Department of Public Safety on Wednesday regarding the claim. The parent also shared a screenshot of part of an email sent to Harlan High School principal Travis Weissler. Weissler responded early Thursday, October 1, saying they had contacted the station manager to address the situation \u201cto ensure the safety of all students,\u201d according to the screenshot.<\/p>\n Barry Perez, Northside ISD\u2019s assistant superintendent of communications, told MySA on Thursday that transportation leadership is aware of the concern and \u201chas fully addressed\u201d it. He said staff investigated the seating concerns using bus surveillance video from September 28 through October 1.<\/p>\n Perez said the maximum capacity for high school students on a bus is 58. The Harlan High bus route serving the Red Bird Ranch area typically averages between 45 and 50, with a high of 56, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe maximum capacity does mean that some seats will have three students,\u201d Perez said. \u201cVideo footage from the bus confirmed that additional seating was still available toward the back of the bus on the day a student sat on the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n Perez later clarified that his reference to \u201ca student\u201d reflected his interpretation of the transportation department\u2019s statement to him.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cI’m not saying that transportation said that there weren’t other students,\u201d Perez said. \u201cMy interpretation was there was a student sitting down, and if I’m wrong on that, then that’s on me and not transportation.\u201d<\/p>\n Perez said transportation leaders reissued guidance to the driver on managing bus capacity. The district also plans to implement a seating chart to ensure every student has a seat.\u00a0<\/p>\n The parent tells MySA that their daughter confirmed a seating chart has already been announced.<\/p>\n Perez said\u00a0that \u201cin this specific case, the directive to not take photos or video was the result of another parent reaching out, concerned and upset that students were posting pictures and videos online that included their child – without consent.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Transportation management then directed the driver to \u201cremind students not to take photos and video,\u201d Perez said. He could not confirm whether the report about nonconsensual photos and videos was received this week or earlier, but he said he could confirm it concerned the Harlan High School to Redbird Ranch route.<\/p>\n Perez says he understands the concerns about having three students per seat, but noted that the bus is designed with three seatbelts in each row. In Northside ISD\u2019s setting of the limit for high school routes at 58, it assumes \u201cthere are going to be some seats where three to three to a seat is going to be needed,\u201d Perez said.\u00a0<\/p>\n When asked whether the seating arrangement would remain in place through the end of the school year, Perez said he did not want to speak prematurely, but added that his \u201cguess is yes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t the first time concerns about bus overcrowding have been raised with Northside ISD. Similar claims were raised in\u00a02018<\/a> and 2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Perez said the hard part is recruiting drivers and retaining them in those positions.<\/p>\n \u201cThat is certainly a challenge for us, and no doubt for other districts as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n MySA reached out to\u00a0Northside ISD Transportation but did not hear back in time for publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Northside ISD responds to claims that Harlan High School students have sat on the bus floor because…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[847,820,82,84,83],"class_list":["post-456055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-mysanews","tag-mysastaff","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}