Ventura County Grand Jury • 2010-2011 • Agency Response
Response to: School Bus Safety

Fillmore Unified School District Findings with Which We Agree:*

Published: November 01, 2011 4 pages
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Note: Missing finding numbers detected: F6

Findings and Recommendations 4 findings

F03 Page 2
Not all districts maintain information on school bus safety statistics. Some districts do not track this information at all, while others rely on their contracted bus companies to do SO. We disagree with this statement because of its broad implications that school districts do not maintain records in accordance with established law. Fillmore Unified School District is required to maintain and report specific information related to our student transportation program on the "Form TRANS." That form is included in the annual unaudited financial report available to the public and submitted to the California Department of Education. However, Fillmore Unified School District is not required to maintain and report specific statistics related to school bus accidents. That requirement resides with the California Highway Patrol.
Related Recommendations (1)
R03
Page 3
The Districts should use the VCOE standard form recommended in R-02, above, to collect school bus safety information, report this information to the VCOE, and post it on district websites. Based on the reasons identified in R-01, R-02 and R-04, the Ventura County Office of Education has communicated that they do not plan to implement this recommendation at this time.
F04 Page 2
Due to the lack of comparable, consistent school bus safety statistics provided by the districts, it is not possible to determine objective measures of school bus safety, such as accident rates. Thus, it is difficult to conclude that school bus transportation in the County is safe, as previously demonstrated at the national level. It is only possible to infer that school bus transportation in the County is safe from the information provided by the districts. We disagree with this statement because of its broad implications that school districts do not maintain records in accordance with established law. Each school district in California is required by law submit annual transportation information to the California Department of Education on the "Form TRANS." The California Highway Patrol is required to investigate school bus accidents and has a database capable of tracking the accidents by county. Both sets of data are available to the public and could be used to make an educated conclusion of the number of accidents per mile driven or per student served.
Related Recommendations (1)
R04
Page 3
The VCOE should use the forms provided by the districts to collate school bus safety information for the County and post it on its website. The Ventura County Office of Education does not have the authority over the public school districts and private schools in the County of Ventura to require the LEA to report this type of statistical information. Without specific authority mandating a data collection process, local jurisdictions could choose not to report and the resulting data will be incomplete and ineffective for comparison purposes. VCOE has communicated they do not plan to implement this recommendation at this time. Response to Grand Jury Report Form NOV 3 2011<br>KAND POLATI Response to Grand Jury Report Form Report Title: School Bus Safety Report Date: June 3, 2011 Response by: <i>Dr. Alan Nishino</i> Title: Interim Siperintendent Fillmore Unified School District <b>FINDINGS</b> I (we) agree with the findings numbered: FI-07 (see statement attached) I (we) disagree wholly or partially with the findings numbered: FI-03, 04, 05 (Attach a statement specifying any portions of the findings that are disputed; include an explanation of the reasons therefor.) RECOMMENDATIONS Recommendations numbered _____ have been implemented. (Attach a summary describing the implemented actions.) Recommendations numbered _____ have not yet been implemented, but will be implemented in the future. (Attach a timeframe for the implementation.) Recommendations numbered require further analysis. (Attach an explanation and the scope and parameters of an analysis or study, and a timeframe for the matter to be prepared for discussion by the officer or director of the agency or department being investigated or reviewed, including the governing body of the public agency when applicable. This timeframe shall not exceed six months from the date of publication of the grand jury report.) Recommendations numbered R-01, 02, 03, 04 will not be implemented because they are not warranted or are not reasonable. (Attach an explanation.) Date: November 1, 2011 Signed: Number of pages attached: 3
F05 Page 2
School bus safety statistics, for districts or for individual schools, are not readily available to the public. We disagree with this statement. We believe that the public has access to and can obtain all the school bus accident and transportation program information that the California Highway Patrol and Fillmore Unified School District are mandated to collect and report. RECOMMENDATIONS THAT WILL NOT BE IMPLEMENTED.
No recommendations for this finding
F07 Page 1
The Grand Jury was unable to identify any single local agency responsible for collecting, collating, and reporting County school bus safety information on a countywide basis. We agree that there is not one agency mandated to collect, collate and report school bus safety information on a countywide basis if the information being identified by the Grand Jury attempts to directly link student ridership with school bus accidents. Public K-12 school districts in California are required to submit basic transportation program information to the California Department of Education on the "Form TRANS" each year along with the districts unaudited financial information. This public information includes the average number of students transported daily and total miles driven to/from school. School districts are not required to report accident information. However, as the report states, the California Highway Patrol (CHP) is required to investigate school bus accidents. The report goes on to state that the CHP Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System includes school bus-involved collision data on a countywide basis, but does not identify individual information for each district or jurisdiction in the County. We suggest that the existing database be expanded to include the school district or jurisdiction associated with the bus. This simple change to an existing data collection system would provide the public with specific information relating to a single jurisdiction. When combined with the currently available data from the "Form TRANS", an interested party could obtain more specific information on the operation of a public school transportation program. FINDINGS WITH WHICH WE DISAGREE:
No recommendations for this finding

* This report's PDF did not contain easily extractable text and required Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for analysis. There may be minor errors in the extracted findings and recommendations due to OCR limitations with scanned documents.