Infant Seats on School Buses Addressed (Day Care at High School)

North Carolina has a new law that starts in January requiring ALL children up to age 8 (actually until they are 9) be seated in booster seats.

I am wondering what the plan is for buses -- espcially since I haven't heard anybody mention it.

Do they require seat belts?

That, I am not sure of; I'm older now and don't know all the school bus rules; this just happens to be in the news this week, as they have had a big drive to sell people these booster seats.

Pa. did that a few years ago, and my sister had to buy seats for her children. I suppose school buses are exempted, or else what an expense that would be!

Well, I have no doubt that somebody out there will come along and say "If they have to have them in cars, they have to have them in buses," threaten to sue, and off the state will go to buy some.

UPDATE!!!

While the Marshall County Board of Education this week urged administrators to find other means for transporting student mothers to John Marshall High School rather than placing infant seats on school buses, officials within Ohio County Schools said the district's bus service for student mothers and infants is a positive program.

Marshall County Schools Interim Superintendent Fred Renzella said Thursday that a day care center at the high school should be operational in two weeks. So far, four student mothers have signed up to participate in the day care program. The school district expects two or three more to sign up in the future. The idea of placing infant seats on school buses met with some disapproval from schools Transportation Director Bruce Mosa during a board meeting last month.

"We need to look at some alternative," Mosa told the board during the meeting. "I don't think (a school bus is) a proper atmosphere for infants."

Renzella said Thursday that Ohio County Schools currently buses student mothers and their infants. He noted that two other counties in the state also bus student mothers and infants.

"It's contingent on the number of kids on the bus," Renzella said. "When you do this, you have to remove the seat behind, so you're going to lose two seats. That could conceivably result in huge cost in terms of adding a bus and driver. That's why other counties do it on a case-by-case basis."

Ohio County Schools Assistant Superintendent George Krelis, however, said the district has been busing student mothers and their infants for more than a decade.

"The transportation department was instrumental in implementing the program," he noted. "We think it's a very positive program for the students who need that service."

Currently, six students from Wheeling Park High School use the service, which has been offered for 15 years or more, according to Transportation Director James Freeland.

"Our practice is that if we have space available on the bus, we'll be more than happy to accommodate student mothers and their infants," he explained. "The car seats have to be federally approved with a sticker on it from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration."

Meanwhile, Renzella added that liability insurance necessary to transport infants on school buses also is at issue. And although the day care program is to be up and running in two weeks, Renzella said the school bus option would take "every bit of two months" to make the necessary accommodations.

"Alternate transportation would probably be more accommodating," Renzella said.

"But that does not mean the board has closed the door on (the school bus option). They want us to exhaust all options for alternate transportation and report back. If there's a child that can't get to school, we'll go back to the drawing board."

Renzella said administrators this week have looked into a couple options for alternative transportation. "There's one thing we can do," Renzella said. "We can reimburse the girls at the federal mileage rate. That would cover the cost of taking the child to and from school."

This option would mean student mothers would use personal transportation.

Another alternative is to utilize taxi cabs to get the student mothers to school, Renzella said. Ohio County Schools for years had transported hearing impaired children via taxi to Center McMechen Elementary School for the hearing impaired program there. The district stopped transporting the students to the Marshall County school after Ohio County Schools developed its own hearing impaired program.

Renzella said Marshall County Schools has used alternate transportation for handicapped students in the past.

In addition, Freeland said the seats on the Ohio County buses are "seat belt ready," which means a child restraint seat is able to be installed. No harness is involved, he added, so it is not necessary to remove the seat behind the child.

"I know that in the last seven years, we have installed seat belt ready seats so we can install those (child restraint) seats," Freeland continued. "New buses are ordered with these features just in case we need them."

Both Krelis and Freeland added that the service of busing student mothers and their infants helps those young mothers who use the day care facility, which is operated by Crittenton Services Inc. at Wheeling Park High School. That child care program has been in existence since 1976, Freeland said. link