After Paramus bus crash, parents take closer look at field trips

In the wake of the Paramus middle school bus accident, parents are asking more questions and taking a closer look at safety protocols surrounding field trips.

Who's behind the wheel of the bus? Who are the chaperones? Are there other adults on the bus and who are they? Are the buses equipped with seat belts? Are field trips even necessary?

The scrutiny comes on the heels of the May 17 Paramus school bus accident that caused the deaths of East Brook Middle School fifth grade student Miranda Vargas, 10, and social studies teacher Jennifer Williamson-Kennedy, 51 and injured more than 40 others.   

So, what are the concerns? 

Transportation 

School or charter buses without seat belts top the list of parents' concerns.

The best way for parents to know whether or not their children are traveling on buses with seat belts is to ask, say school officials. 

That's just what some Washington Township parents did.

Amy Maffei Snyder said she and other Washington Township parents became vocal and upset when they learned the bus hired by their school district for a field trip to the Meadowlands Environmental Center had no seat belts.

"Before the Paramus school bus accident they had charter buses in place,” Maffei Snyder said. “When the accident occurred the parents questioned the school about the charter bus company and they determined that there were no seat belts." Following the outcry, the district changed buses and the students attended the field trip on a yellow school bus equipped with seat belts, Maffey Snyder said.

Federal safety regulations, which require school buses to be equipped with seat belts, do not apply to charter buses.

The Paramus school bus that crashed on Route 80 in Mount Olive was equipped with seat belts. 

Rockaway Township father Christopher Thomas is also concerned with seat belt safety on buses. 

The Rockaway Township fifth grade students who attended the class trip to the Bronx Zoo were transported by charter bus, Thomas said. 

"Some of those do have seat belts and some of them don't," Thomas said of coach buses. "Of course we are all concerned after that bus accident on Route 80."

What can parents do? Thomas said he doesn't think he has any say as a parent other than keep his child home on days the rest of the students attend a field trip. 

"I felt uneasy about it, but by the time that I found out about it on social media, they were already getting on the bus," Thomas said of the lack of seat belts.

Thomas said districts need to alert parents if their children are going to be transported on buses without seat belts. He also questions where the liability lies when students are hurt on  buses that don't have them. Is it with the parents signing permission slips allowing their children to go or with the districts that contract with bus companies?

According to several district leaders, bus drivers are responsible for reminding students to buckle up.

Maffei Snyder said she was pleased with her child's school leaders who listened to parents' concerns and responded by changing buses.

Seat belts are not the only concerns, Maffei Snyder said. Bus drivers and chaperones are also high on the list.

Bus drivers

Who are the drivers? What are their ages? What's their driving history?

The Paramus bus driver, 77-year-old Hudy Muldrow Sr., was charged with two counts of vehicular homicide. His next court appearance is scheduled for June 25 in Morristown.

Muldrow Sr., allegedly missed an exit for Waterloo Village, then attempted an illegal U-turn intended for official vehicles only in the median of Interstate 80. A dump truck traveling westbound in the center lane struck the bus in the side toward the rear.

The Motor Vehicle Commission has confirmed Muldrow's license had been suspended 14 times over the years, most recently in December. Six of the suspensions were for unpaid parking tickets. But Muldrow had also received eight speeding tickets over the years and was cited for careless driving.

The Record and NorthJersey.com have reported that Muldrow's December license suspension was because of unpaid parking tickets. 

So how do parents know if the driver responsible for transporting their children has a good driving record? 

Parents are very concerned with vetting bus drivers and should ask more questions, said Ravit Gilletti, president of Fair Lawn's Henry B. Milnes Elementary School PTA.

In Denville, only "in-house" drivers are used to transport students, said schools Superintendent Steven Forte. 

Denville Township owns and maintains its fleet of 30 buses with a staff of more than 40 people. Forte said his district knows its drivers well.

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“They are members of our community,” he said. 

Paramus schools, records show, also use in-house drivers. 

Other districts, such as Paterson, use outside bus companies that are awarded routes through bidding. 

In March, NorthJersey.com reported the number of contract violations issued to school bus companies that transport Paterson students increased dramatically during the first six months of the academic year, public records show.

The district wrote 245 violations against 14 private bus companies from September 2017 through February 2018, according to records. That represents a 30 percent increase compared with the 188 violations for all 10 months of the previous school year.

As a result of those violations, the district has imposed $108,000 in fines against the companies, a 50 percent increase over the $72,000 in fines issued to the bus vendors during 2016-17.

The New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission inspects school vehicles twice each year.  

In Denville, buses have a 30-point inspection, Forte said. The state conducts full yearly inspections of buses as well, said Forte.

“It is very detailed. They will pull buses out for something very minor, like if a windshield wiper is not as it should be," Forte said of state inspectors. "They make you pull it out of service until you put a new one on.” 

Forte said Denville uses district buses and drivers for field trips that fall within school hours. 

“If the trip begins after drop-off and ends before pick up we will use one of our own school buses,” he said. “But if it is a longer trip, that is something that we would most likely contract out.” 

Story continues after photo gallery.

Who chaperones?

Teachers work with principals to plan trips. 

“It is a location that we feel comfortable sending the students based on our knowledge of the location and the programs they provide,” said Montville Superintendent Rene Rovtar. 

Based on this knowledge, teachers set expectations for students as to what they can bring with them, what they should wear and the behavior that is expected when they are out of the classroom. 

Guidelines are also set for parents who volunteer as chaperones. Examples here include the day’s schedule, responsibilities such as staying with the group at all times and setting expectations. 

Retired teacher Anne Grote, who is still active in the Westfield school district, said things have improved greatly as far as chaperones. 

"They try to have one aide for every four children nowadays," Grote said. "When I was a teacher there might have been one or two adults on a bus of 26 students. It is much improved. They ask a lot of parents to go on the trips." 

While parents are needed to keep an eye on the students, staff members are the ones who do the heavy lifting.       

“Staff member chaperones are really in charge of everything,” said Forte. “They are in charge of the trip and in charge of the kids just like they would be if they were in a classroom.” 

The teachers will be in charge of creating and maintaining the day’s schedule, counting heads, permission slips and making sure safety guidelines are being met. 

What is the point of a field trip?

Are field trips even necessary? Why take students from the safety of the classroom in the first place?  
 
Field trips connect students to the lessons they have learned in the classrooms, Rovtar said. Learning, she said, is the priority, but there are many reasons for getting students out of schools. 

Many field trips are directly connected to the curriculum, especially for younger students. For example, fourth graders study New Jersey government and will take a trip to visit the Trenton statehouse.

Other trips, she said, are "more of a celebrational kind of experience,” said Rovtar. “You see more of those in a milestone year.” 

Fifth graders go to a zoo before moving on to middle school in a way to share an experience. The students are given a chance to bond before they move on to their next school.    

The older the students, the farther they can step out into the world. 

“In eighth grade they might have an overnight trip," Rovtar said. "You don’t frequently see that for other grade levels." 

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On field trips, students also learn how to be safe in a group and how to represent their school, Rovtar said. 

Parents do have legitimate concerns in all these areas, said Shauna Prause, PTA president at Rockaway Township's Katherine D. Malone school. 

"Whenever a parent leaves a child in someone else's care, there's an underlying fear. The odds exist, the unspeakable can and does happen. In the wake of tragedies like this, that fear gets louder," Prause said of the Paramus bus crash.   

Are school buses safe?

School buses are among the safest vehicles on the road, according to federal statistics. School transportation vehicles experience 0.2 fatalities for every 100 million miles driven, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, compared with 1.5 fatalities for every 100 million miles driven in passenger vehicles.

School buses have a lot of safety features that are unique to them, said Jennifer Jermakian, a senior research engineer at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. They're larger and heavier than most vehicles on the road, they have enhanced strength requirements and they're bright yellow and highly visible, among other things.

Students are about 70 times more likely to get to school safely when taking a school bus instead of traveling by car, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. On its website, the agency that has been compiling such statistics for nearly half a century says four to six school-age children die each year in school vehicles.

Arnold Anderson, who was a cop and fatal-crash investigator before taking the helm of the New Jersey Teen Safe Driving Coalition said school buses "are built something like a tank. They’re the safest vehicles on the road.”

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also compares school buses to a tank, mostly because they’re heavier than cars, vans and light trucks, which means they distribute crash forces in a more safety-conscious way.

School buses use a safety concept called compartmentalization, which means children are also protected due to the closely-spaced seats that have energy-absorbing seat backs. 

New Jersey passed a state law in the early 1990s requiring school buses to be equipped with seat belts. 

John Cichowski and Curtis Tate contributed to this article.

Email: myers@northjersey.com