MARSHALL — Southwest Coaches, the Marshall Public School District’s transportation partner, has recently installed a dual-camera system to further enhance student safety by increasing attention to drivers illegally passing by buses when the stop-arm is extended out.

MPS Director of Operations Tricia Stelter provided an update at Monday’s school board meeting regarding how the camera system project came about, and the elevated amount of violations the City of Marshall has been able to see.

“As we know, illegal passing of school buses is dangerous and it’s been hard to enforce. Minnesota law requires that you stop at least 20 feet away from a school bus that has its red light flashing, or the stop arm extended,” Stelter said. “If we look back to 2021, the Department of Public Safety allocated over $15 million statewide for transportation safety initiatives. Marshall has joined in this last phase of grant, and Southwest Coaches was awarded the $90,000 for the installation of the cameras.”

Southwest Coaches received the grant in April 2025 under Minnesota’s Phase VIII Stop-Arm Camera Grant Program. The cameras were installed over the summer and into the start of the new school year, and have been up and running since October.

“We equipped 30 buses with a dual-camera system. What that means, is that there’s a camera on the front of the bus and a camera on the rear of the bus, so it’s able to capture video from all directions,” Stelter said.

“How does this work? When a violation is detected, when a school bus driver sees somebody that is about to or goes through the stop bar, there’s a button that they push in the bus. What that does, is it captures it and puts a flag on the video of (when) the violation occurred, and then it marks two minutes before that and five minutes after that,” Stelter added of the process. “When the bus is pulled back into the bus garage, all of that information is downloaded, and the office staff can review that to confirm if it was truly a violation or not. Then, that is sent off to MPD (Marshall Police Department) for enforcement.”

The report analyzing the impact of the camera system was compiled for a case study by Chris Webb of the Southwest Regional Development Commission, who met with Marshall Police Chief Jim Marshall, the owners of Southwest Coaches and Stelter.

Stelter provided data the district has seen since the new cameras have been operating since October.

According to the case study, prior to the installation of stop-arm cameras, the Marshall Police Department recorded a stable number of violations across four years. There were 48 violations in 2021, 47 in 2022, 50 for 2023 and 46 reported in 2024.

However in 2025 since the implementation of the cameras, the number of reported violations increased to 120, a 250% increase compared to the prior four-year average of 48 violations, according to the report. The data also represents just about a four-month period since the start of the new school year with the new system.

“Our goal isn’t necessarily to issue more tickets, but more importantly, to improve student safety. We are bringing this forward to our community this afternoon for awareness and hope that everyone can do their part to reduce violations,” Stelter said. “The sharp increase in documented violations since the installation of the camera uncovers an alarming number of how often this is happening, and putting our students at risk.”

Along with enhancing student transportation safety by reducing the risk of illegal passing, Stelter also noted that the camera system serves other objectives as well.

“The second objective is to provide evidence for enforcement. Prior to having the cameras, we were asking a lot of our bus drivers. We were asking them to capture the make, the model, the license plate number of the vehicle, but to do this while attempting to supervise the students on the school bus and making sure that each student was getting off at the right stop. This technology is really going to help enforce some of those rules,” Stelter said. “The third objective is really to streamline the work for the Marshall Police Department as well, so their focus can be on enforcement and not necessarily the investigative piece that goes with it.”

Additionally during the installation process, technicians worked to ensure durability and weather resistance performance on the new camera system, along with including proper placement for an optimal field of view, and training for the bus drivers and maintenance crew.

“Whether it’s near our school sites or near our buses, please pay attention,” Stelter urged. “Please slow down, and always be watchful for our students.”