Garland school bus discipline idea: Sit down, watch the video
12:00 AM CDT on Saturday, June 19, 2010
By KAREL HOLLOWAY / The Dallas Morning News
kholloway@dallasnews.com

Television can be a ready baby sitter in the living room, but will it work on school buses?

The Garland school district is experimenting with playing educational videos on a school bus to help cut discipline problems.

For $1,500 per bus, Carrollton-based AdComp Systems installs a 26-inch flat screen TV at the front of the bus. The screen plays videos supplied by NASA, the Discovery network, History Channel and others. Between the videos are brief safety messages.

There are no commercials.

Garland transportation director Brian Abbett said it's a good thing anytime that students' attention on the bus can be focused on something other than picking on each other.

The district has one bus equipped with the screen and videos and used it briefly at the end of the school year, Abbett said. The equipment was free for the pilot. Abbett said the district doesn't have any data yet on whether the videos reduce discipline problems, but he's hopeful.

"It's an intriguing concept," he said. "The kids like it."

John Johnson, AdComp's marketing director, said a brief study in another school district found a 70 percent drop in bus discipline problems.

"The rowdy boys and the rowdy girls come from the back of the bus to the front of the bus," Johnson said. "They want to watch the videos."

The videos can be updated daily while the buses are parked during down time, so there are not a lot of repeats, Johnson said.

The system has been available for three months, and only a handful of districts have tried the program.

Garland's bus is being displayed at the Texas Association of Pupil Transport conference in Arlington today. With more than 200 buses to equip and no definitive proof that a bus is safer because of the videos, the district has not committed to follow up on the pilot.

"It's a very fascinating product," Abbett said. "Unless it's going to have an impact on improving student safety, I don't know that it would be a wise investment."

Garland school bus discipline idea: Sit down, watch the video - PDF

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