RESERVE — A parent recently told St. John the Baptist Parish School Board Member Russ Wise about local students fighting on the school bus, with the parent indicating the bus driver ignored the fight taking place and did not report it to school administrators.

“I have no idea whether it is true, because apparently there is no camera on that bus,” said Wise, who represents District 8.

Wise shared his story and concerns with School Board members during their regular meeting last week in Reserve.

Documenting similar accusations will be easier to track going forward after School Board members approved a $1.8 million contract with Ross Bus Sales to supply the District with 20 new school buses, including 14 regular buses, four special needs buses and two head start buses.

All the buses will have GPS monitoring and camera systems, as well as air conditioning.

Wise said School Board members were told several years ago by their attorney that the transportation supervisor should randomly pull the GPS records of a couple of buses and study them to make sure the vehicles are being used correctly.

“There may be no problem,” Wise said. “I hope there is no problem. Spot checking GPS records and so on is a good thing to do to protect ourselves from possible lawsuits.”

Peter Montz, St. John the Baptist Parish School District purchasing director, told School Board members he agreed with the monitoring suggestion.

Montz said there are approximately 65 buses in the School District’s fleet, which currently includes 12 with operating camera systems and 23 with GPS capabilities.

Montz said Fleet Complete, the GPS service provider of the 20 new buses, is going to equip all of the District’s buses with GPS systems free of charge in exchange for the School District paying a monthly monitoring fee.

“That fee is less than what we are paying now,” Montz said. “It makes it quite affordable to where we can outfit the entire fleet. Our issue that we need to focus on is the cameras.”

According to Montz, the School District is going to save $7.95 per month per unit under the new contract with no up-front cost. A fleet assessment and installation of the new units will be phased in during June and July with the goal of being fully operational for Aug. 1.

The new buses will arrive from the dealer with GPS and camera systems installed.

District 4 School Board Member Patrick Sanders told Montz during last week’s School Board meeting that the District has purchased buses for the last 20 years with GPS systems and cameras, and “we all know that after about a year of running and the shaking of the cameras, they stop working.”

Citing safety precaution as his main concern, Sanders said keeping camera systems operating in the busses is a priority.