We, the undersigned, write this letter to Superintendent Dr. Kris Harrison and the Irvington Board of Education (the "Board") urging that the Board maintain bus monitors on our school buses for the 2014-2015 school year. In the current proposed budget, the Superintendent is proposing to remove bus monitors from all runs except for special education students with monitors or attendants specifically placed on their IEP's.

A large portion of Irvington students use the school bus to get to and from school. The school bus stop is by far the most dangerous place for children traveling on school buses. According to the Pupil Transportation Safety Institute, “Four out of every five children killed at the bus stop while the bus was on the scene were killed while in the process of boarding or departing their school bus.” Indeed, in 1996, an Irvington high school freshman was dragged and crushed to death by her own school bus when her jacket drawstring got caught on the bus handrail as she departed the bus. Without a monitor disembarking with the students at the bus stop, there was no one there to notice that this student was still in the bus unloading danger zone. Our school system, for good reason, has had bus monitors assisting students of all ages since the 1996 accident.

In addition to the safety concerns at the school bus stop, there are many other benefits of having bus monitors traveling with our children. At Dows Lane, children may be on the school bus as young as 4 years old attending kindergarten without any prior bus riding experience. These children need help buckling their seat belts, sitting properly in their seats, and engaging appropriately with other children. As the children grow older, aggressive behavior and bullying, both physical and psychological, in the confined area of the school bus increases, which may lead to absenteeism from school, dropping grades and poor concentration in class. All these things affect the learning process and disrupt our children's educations. According to the National Association for Pupil Transportation's White Paper on Bullying, "School bus drivers are very limited in what they can do when a behavioral incident occurs on their bus because dealing with it could involve the safe operation of the bus." A report released by a manufacturer of school bus surveillance equipment quoted that over ninety-percent of the crashes involving school bus driver error can be attributed to the bus driver distracted by student misbehavior on the school bus.

While two of our quad district transportation partners have eliminated bus monitors, the vast majority of our direct, neighboring school districts see the value of supervision and have maintained monitors in some capacity on their school buses: Tarrytown/Sleepy Hollow (Kindergarten), Dobbs Ferry (K – 5), Greenburgh (K – 12), Elmsford (pre-K – 6) and Pocantico Hills (pre-K – 8).

While we understand the need to present a responsible, balanced budget to the Irvington community, the safety and well-being of our children must be paramount. In fact, many parents chose the Irvington schools to raise their family knowing their children will be assisted by a bus monitor at all grades.

Dr. Harrison and the Board, we have entrusted our most cherished assets, our children, in your hands and we respect all that you do for them. On this occasion, we find it important enough to write to you to implore you to reverse the proposed elimination of the school bus monitors from the 2014-2015 budget and continue the good work of keeping our children safe.