Community members in New Haven are calling for change after an 8-year-old girl suffered a medical emergency on the school bus home and later died.
They're now looking to bus monitors to keep an eye on the students and make sure children stay safe on their way to and from school.
"I wouldn't expect a bus driver to be able to do anything but ensure the safety in driving," said Gwen Samuel, director of community action group Teach Our Children & Youth Unleashed. "But when you have this many children on the bus, and we're talking about kindergarten on up, there needs to be another adult, a monitor on the bus."
Megan Ifill, whose daughter takes a special-needs bus from New Haven to New Britain, is also pushing for more supervision. She said a fight broke out when the regular bus monitor was absent.
"If you're going to be riding 10 hours a week, how can you not even have a monitor?" she wondered. "I'm trusting... and we just had this sad situation with this 8-year-old."
It's left many people pushing for change and wondering what can be done.
"I think it's very unfortunate that it took this situation to bring the community together to change our school bus policies," said Isaiah Rutherford, of Teach Our Children/Youth Unleashed. "I don't think it should ever come this far."
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Abbe Smith, spokesperson for the school district, said New Haven Public Schools currently employs 66 bus monitors at a cost of about $1 million and assigns them to buses with young and special-needs children.
"We have a total of 307 buses running multiple routes throughout the day. There would be significant additional cost to the district to place monitors on every bus for every route in the district," she said. "Historically, we have a strong safety record with our bus transportation program and it continues to be a main point of emphasis in our contract with First Student. Student safety and wellness is always our top priority."
Smith added that school officials send their thoughts and prayers to the family of 8-year-old Talea Turnage and are continuing to investigate the circumstances leading up to her death.
