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Sarah Benton urges Brunswick County Schools to enforce bus seating separation for middle and high school students
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Summary
At the April 14 board meeting, parent Sarah Benton told the board that district buses routinely mix middle- and high-school students without consistently enforced seating charts and urged the board to adopt and verify a policy separating age groups on shared routes to reduce foreseeable risk.
Sarah Benton told the Brunswick County Board of Education on April 14 that the district’s current practice of placing middle- and high-school students together on shared bus routes creates an “unmanaged environment” that raises foreseeable safety risks.
Benton said district policy requires assigned seating, but that requirement only reduces risk if it is applied consistently in practice. “When high school and middle school students are placed together in an unmanaged environment, that risk isn't hypothetical, it's foreseeable,” she said, urging the board to ensure consistent enforcement of assigned seating, create clear separation protocols for shared routes and provide communication and verification that those practices are in place.
The parent asked the board to adopt and enforce a policy that explicitly addresses separation by age group on shared buses and to require staff to verify compliance. Board members did not debate or adopt a new rule during the meeting; the public comment was heard during the public address portion of the agenda and the board moved on to committee reports.
The matter is related to broader operations and safety oversight the board reviews through its transportation and operations work. No formal action or vote on a revised bus-seating policy took place at this meeting; the board approved consent items and later moved into closed session for personnel matters.
