BELLEVILLE, Ill. – A You Paid For It investigation discovered a big problem on a Belleville School District 118 school bus.
School parent Tiffany Pirkle complained that her child was being bullied on the bus. But when she tried to get some evidence from bus cameras, authorities discovered that the cameras were not working.
“The problem I’m having is that on the bus they are telling me the bus video is not working,” she said. “I’ve had three different instances where I have asked them to pull bus video. Each time I was told bus video was not working, so my concern is how many buses are there no video working? And how many parents and kids have experienced the same problem we are?”
Pirkle said her son experienced three incidents on the bus: one where he was punched, another where he was pulled down to the floor, and a third incident where the bus monitor yelled at him.
“When I ask them to pull video about an incident that occurred on the bus—a kid hit my son in the eye—they got back to me and told me the video was not working on the bus,” she said. “I’m trying to protect my child. He’s coming home every day upset. This is a kid that loves to go to school and started asking to not go to school.”
FOX 2 contacted Belleville School District 118 Superintendent Dr. Ryan Boike for answers. And while the superintendent couldn’t talk about the alleged bullying because of privacy concerns, he addressed the issue of the cameras not working.
“The concern was brought to the principal’s attention. He asked to pull the video. When they pulled the video, they found out that the device did not record,” Boike said. “Internal batteries went dead.”
How long were the cameras inoperable? The superintendent didn’t know.
“I was not given that information,” he said.
Moving forward, Boike said the district will take new steps, such as more frequent reminders to check and place the batteries in bus cameras, so this doesn’t happen again, and parents can have peace of mind.
