Cameras on Duval County school buses will capture images of people passing illegally. | Nancy Guan, WUSF
Published on June 15, 2026 at 2:47 pm
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Q. Florida law requires drivers to stop when a nearby school bus extends its stop arm, in most cases.
Drivers often don’t stop, though, which can endanger children crossing the road to board or exit a bus. To help keep kids safe, Duval Schools recently forged a partnership with a company called BusPatrol America to issue $225 tickets to drivers who don’t stop when they should have.
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Jacksonville Today reader Jonathon A. says he’s curious about what happens to all the money collected from the bus camera tickets.
For the passing school bus violators, does some of that money go back to the schools?
A. In short, yes. According to the contract Duval Schools and BusPatrol America agreed to in February, the district and the operator split the revenue 50-50.
In order to catch drivers in the act of passing a bus with its stop sign extended, BusPatrol paid for cameras to be installed on the district’s buses. They’re mounted in an enclosure on the side of the bus with the stop sign and record violators from multiple angles.
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Duval Schools’ first foray into ticketing nonstoppers is a two-year agreement that began with a 30-day warning period in April. Tickets — a lot of them — were issued in May.
Records provided by the district show that in May, about 4,000 cases were reviewed and 3,192 citations were issued. At $225 a pop, that’s almost $720,000 in ticket revenue.
District spokesperson Laureen Ricks tells Jacksonville Today that the Duval Schools police “carefully review” all recorded violations before a ticket is issued “to help ensure accuracy and fairness.”
“If there is any uncertainty regarding the validity of a violation, a citation will not be issued,” Ricks writes in an email. “Our goal is to avoid issuing citations in error.”
Drivers who would like to appeal a ticket can do so through Florida’s Department of Administrative Hearings.
Ricks says Florida law is very specific about what districts can use this kind of revenue for. Mostly, the funds must be used toward the expense of operating the program or other related expenses like safety initiatives and driver recruitment and retention stipends.
She didn’t say specifically what Duval Schools will use the money for.
Duval Schools launched a public safety campaign about 18 months ago called “Be Safe Be Seen” to educate both drivers and children about traffic safety. It’s also installed traffic gardens at various elementary schools around the county designed to teach students about pedestrian safety.
