Erica Brown has never been one to put herself in the public eye, but she was motivated to do so after hearing of an alleged sex assault against a child on a school bus.
A male youth from western Newfoundland is facing three charges of sexual assault.
Brown is the driving force behind a petition asking the school board to address the growing concerns of parents when it comes to the safety of children while riding on the school bus.
The petition is asking school board officials to look at a number of possible options that include segregated buses for primary/elementary and junior high/senior high school students, installing video cameras on buses and having paid or volunteer monitors on buses.
“I feel that if nobody steps up, nothing is going to change. Somebody had to take that step to get something done,” Brown said from her home on the north shore of the Bay of Islands Friday afternoon.
Incidents where a child’s safety is compromised, whether it be on the school bus or on the school grounds, is something Brown wished never happened but she’s seen enough to know that it’s time for action.
Sitting around water coolers or expressing opinions on social media isn’t going to do anything to bring about change so she hopes people will join her in the fight.
Brown says some of the options could make things better, but she believes the best action would be to segregated buses to keep the young ones away from the teenagers who depend on the bus to get to school.
She doesn’t want anyone to think it’s a knock against older children because that’s not the case. She just wants boys and girls to ride with people their own age and not have to worry about any negative impact from older students.
“Our children are growing up fast enough as it is,” she said. “I feel that some of the things they hear on the bus, witness on the bus and they experience on the bus is affecting what innocence they have.”
Brown has empathy for the bus drivers who are responsible for transporting students safely to and from school. She doesn’t think it would be reasonable to think a school bus driver can keep an eye on every child and what’s going on during the ride when they have to worry about other traffic and pedestrians. She wouldn’t want her daughter’s school bus driver having to take his or her eyes off the road because of distractions on the bus.
Brown has already garnered 400 signatures for the petition that she has shared to her Facebook page.
