Bill prompted by school bus sex assaults passes Senate
TRENTON >> State legislators have taken notice of the sexual and physical assaults occurring on city school buses.
Following a handful of incidents documented on Trenton Public School buses, the state Senate passed a bill Thursday to protect children being transported to and from school.
“The school bus should be one of the safest places for our children, but without proper supervision, some children are acting out in the worst way possible,” Sen. Shirley Turner (D-Mercer/Hunterdon) said in a statement. “School bus assaults are occurring at a more frequent rate, and we need to put an end to them now. It is unconscionable that our young girls are being sexually assaulted and preschoolers are being physically attacked on the bus ride home from school.”
The most recent sexual assault on a Trenton bus occurred at the end of March, when a 5-year-old special needs student was attacked. A fifth-grade boy with special needs reportedly sexually assaulted the girl by exposing himself and pushing her head into his groin during the March 28 incident as students were being transported home from P.J. Hill Elementary School on a Delaware Valley Bus Line bus, officials said. The victim’s mom said neither an aide on the contracted bus nor the bus driver reported the incident to the district.
The incident was one of five assaults to occur on district buses since July, when another Trenton special needs student, 8, was sexually assaulted on a 52-passenger bus in a similar manner as the recent case. Advocates said the bus was overcrowded at the time of the attack.
The bill would require one bus aide for every 15 students with special needs on a bus.
The incidents were brought to light by Nicole Whitfield, executive director of Special Parent Advocacy Group. Whitfield has advocated for the bill’s passage since the July attack and has included several Trentonian stories about the attacks in packets given to state legislators.
“We’re just extremely happy that it passed and hopefully the governor will sign it and that way we can make sure come September that the kids have additional supervision on the school buses,” Whitfield said. “Every day that it takes for this bill to pass completely through, there’s another child at risk.”
In a letter sent to the heads of the Trenton school board, the New Jersey State Board of Education and the Department of Education earlier this month, State Sen. President Steve Sweeney and the legislators of the 15th district, where Trenton is located, said, “The safety and wellbeing of our children should be our highest priority.”
“When parents sent their children to school they expect them to be well taken care of,” the letter reads. “But reports across the state, and in particular in Trenton, tell a different story. There have been numerous reports of students with special needs being physically and sexually assaulted on school buses. These buses are often lacking staff, overcrowded, and combining students with a variety of abilities and ages together.”
Current school regulations do not mandate aide-to-student ratios for school buses.
“Bus drivers can’t be expected to deal with discipline problems when they need to pay attention to the traffic on the road,” said Turner, a co-sponsor of the bill. “One bus aide is not enough on a packed school bus that includes children with special needs who may be more vulnerable to attacks and more sensitive to school bus commotion.”
The bill passed the Senate 27-9 and now heads to the Assembly.