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Father Told He Can't See Bus Video Proving Son's Guilt

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By RONNIE BLAIR

rblair@tampatrib.com

Published: February 21, 2009

LAND O' LAKES - When school officials accused Philip Copeland's son of tossing a bottle out a school bus window on U.S. 41, Copeland asked to see the bus surveillance video that supposedly shows what the teenager did.

His son, who faced suspension, denied the accusation, so Copeland figured a look at the video would settle any doubts.

School officials told him there was no doubt.

They also told him he couldn't view the video.

"They could be right, but why can't I see the evidence?" Copeland said.

District officials said such video recordings are student records and thus are off-limits to public viewing except under special circumstances.

That leaves Copeland unsure of how he can determine whether his son, who named another student as the bottle thrower, is telling the truth. Right now he's siding with his son, a Land O' Lakes High School student who already has served his suspension over the Feb. 5 incident.

Because of student confidentiality laws, school district officials couldn't discuss the specifics of Copeland's case. Some of them weren't familiar with it. They could, though, discuss the video policy.

Dennis Alfonso, attorney for the Pasco County School Board, said Florida court rulings have established that a bus video is considered a student record.

Although parents can see the records of their children, a bus video records images of other students. Parents aren't allowed to see the student records of someone else's child.

Copeland finds that reasoning odd.

He said anyone could go to the school and watch students get on and off the bus, so who is riding the bus is no secret.

If that's the law, he said, it needs to be changed.

Lizette Alexander, the district's director of student services and discipline, said that while a surveillance video is good backup evidence, usually there are plenty of witnesses who can finger the culprit when something happens on a bus.

"The video is a secondary thing in most cases," Alexander said.

Although there are occasional requests to view the videos, they don't come up often, said Jack Greene, a district transportation supervisor.

Cameras originally were installed in some Pasco school buses years ago as a deterrent. The theory was that students might be less likely to commit offenses if they knew they were being recorded, Greene said.

Not every bus has a camera. For many years, about 10 percent of the buses had them, Greene said. In the past year or two the district began buying new buses with cameras already installed.

While the surveillance videos are considered confidential records, there are options for getting around that legal provision.

The video could be modified to blur the faces of the other students on the bus, Alfonso said.

Copeland said he wanted that done in his son's case, but was told the district charges a $300 fee.

Assistant Superintendent Ray Gadd said the fee is to compensate for a school district employee's time spent editing the video.

"The technical folks who work on these things say it's a very tedious process," Gadd said.

Alfonso said another way around the dilemma is for the school to seek consent from the other students' parents.

That's how the school district handled a situation recently when a bus video was used as part of the evidence for a Hudson High teacher's termination hearing before the Pasco County School Board, Alfonso said.

Parents of all the students on the bus received notice that the video was going to be viewed and they could object if they wanted.

No one objected, Alfonso said.

Copeland said his protests might have accomplished one thing: School officials have removed the suspension from his son's record, he said.

He also now is willing to pay the $300, but has been told the video no longer is available. The school district reuses the bus videotapes, so the recordings aren't kept indefinitely.

At this point Copeland is left to trust the word of the school officials who viewed the video, which leaves him uneasy.

Videos aside, that kind of situation isn't unusual, Gadd said.

"Administrators see students do things all the time that no one else saw," he said, "and they have to take action on it."

Reporter Ronnie Blair can be reached at (813) 948-4218.

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