By Olivia Doherty
Numerous state courts have exempted school districts from the legal responsibility for a student's safety between the bus stop and their home, according to a legal brief filed by the National School Boards Association in the Arizona case of Warrington v. Tempe Elementary School District.
According to the January 2000 legal brief, an elementary school student was dropped off at a bus stop in September 1999 by a school bus when he was approached by another student who had previously threatened him. To avoid an attack, the student ran away from the bus stop and into the street. He was hit by oncoming traffic and sustained serious brain and spinal injuries.
The student's parents sued the school district, alleging that it had negligently placed the bus stop in an unsafe location with a foreseeable risk of harm. But the NSBA disagreed in its legal brief, arguing that the district should not be held liable because the school bus delivered the student safe and sound to his neighborhood bus stop.
"School boards ... are not insurers of students' safety, and a school board's control over its students regarding transportation extends from when a school bus picks up a student at a bus stop to the school door," the brief stated.
The state trial court initially granted the district immunity from the lawsuit, but the Arizona Court of Appeals reversed and remanded the decision. The court then determined that the district was 15 percent at fault and owed the parents $900,000 in damages.
Regardless of where the legal responsibility lies, school safety and law-enforcement officials alike believe that efforts to protect students outside school buildings must come from the entire community.
"It doesn't make any sense to point fingers," Mr. Modzeleski said. "This really has to be done collaboratively as a partnership. It's really a call for communities and schools to work together on this thing."
Many successful security programs have resulted from strong partnerships between police departments and school districts, said Curt Lavarello, the executive director of the Anthony, Fla.-based National Association of School Resource Officers. "You want to be able to respond as a team and address issues as a team," he said. "I think once you start doing that, you're much better off in terms of being able to stop [violence] and prevent it from happening in the future."
Most importantly, Mr. Modzeleski said, schools and communities must work together to comprehensively combat violence. And an important part of this partnership is defining clear roles. "I think it is reasonable to expect that schools and police departments work together on a regular basis to figure out what the appropriate roles and responsibilities are," he said.
Some districts have been doing that for decades. Since 1958, for example, the Flint Community Schools in Michigan have partnered with city police in one of the nation's first school resource officer programs. Now, each of the district's five middle schools and five high schools houses a sworn city police officer. Additionally, the district employs 48 staff members to monitor student safety on and off school grounds throughout the district, including bus stops.
"We have been proactive for a long time," said Larry Watkins, the director of school safety and security for the 20,000-student district. In addition to establishing a police presence in the schools, the district uses metal detectors at building entrances, monitors activities in and around schools through surveillance cameras, and equips security officials with handheld computers for instant access to student information and schedules. For elementary students traveling to and from school, the district has a "safe passage" program. Before and after school hours, adult volunteers wearing neon orange clothing serve as eyes and ears for the students, Mr. Watkins said.
"We've had a couple of incidents where a couple of students have reported a stranger trying to get them into their vehicle," Mr. Watkins said. "Because of 'safe passage,' we have been able to report that and prevent that from happening."
Just this year, the district began a two-vehicle mobile-patrol unit to watch over bus stops and create a visible presence in the community. "I think we have an obligation to make sure that our students are safe on their way to school and on their way home from school," he said, adding that even if the school district is not legally responsible for areas off school grounds, it feels it must do as much as it can to safeguard students in those places.
