Port Arthur ISD transportation director presents proposed bus-safety handbook, requests student-handbook amendment

Mr. Stansell, Port Arthur ISD's transportation director, presented a proposed bus-riding safety handbook and asked the Board of Trustees to amend the district student handbook to include the new rules and consequences for misconduct on school buses. “It is a privilege to ride the bus,” Stansell said, and he described a new badge system tied to routing software he said will allow students to “badge in, badge out.”

The proposal outlines three levels of infractions with escalating consequences, from warnings and parent contact to multi-day suspensions and possible removal of bus privileges for the semester for the most serious incidents. Stansell told trustees the district will use video evidence and school reports to document incidents and that schools, not transportation staff, would determine the suspension and notify transportation so suspensions can be enforced.

Board context: the handbook was presented as a safety measure and a way to increase parent involvement. Stansell said Level 1 infractions include “loud disruptive talking, harassing other passengers, littering.” Level 2 would include items such as possession of lighters or unsafe physical contact. Level 3 covers fighting, weapons and fireworks. He described progressive removal of bus privileges tied to the levels and said the district plans to require badges for riders and deploy new routing software to track arrivals and departures.

Trustees asked how suspension decisions would be made and entered into district systems. President Kenneth Lofton asked: who would determine suspensions and how would transportation be notified? Stansell said the school would make the determination, pull video as needed, send notification to parents and notify transportation so drivers will know a student is suspended from bus service. Stansell also credited district staff for drafting the handbook; he singled out Derrick Moore for significant work on the document.

The transcript contains inconsistent statements about the exact number of days assigned to specific first-offense suspensions for Level 3 infractions (the presentation references both “3-day” and “5-day” examples at different points). That inconsistency was not resolved on the record.

No formal board vote on placing the handbook language into the student handbook is recorded in the transcript. Stansell said he hoped trustees “would vote on” the amendment but the meeting record shows only discussion and questions. Next steps and any formal vote date were not specified in the transcript.