Hamilton Community Schools is making a major investment in student safety this winter as the district installs brand-new, state-of-the-art camera systems on all 16 of its route buses through a partnership with Pro-Vision, a West Michigan company based in Byron Center. The upgrade includes interior cameras, exterior cameras, and fully AI-enabled stop-arm cameras designed to capture high-definition footage of vehicles that illegally pass school buses while red lights are activated.
The decision to upgrade was driven by a growing concern: drivers failing to stop for school bus red lights. “There’s been a growing issue, not necessarily just in our district, but in surrounding districts as well, of people failing to yield for school bus red lights,” HCS Resource Officer, Deputy John Dekkinga explained. “It’s posing a huge safety issue for kids as they’re either crossing the road or getting onto the bus.”
The new camera systems allow the district to more effectively hold violators accountable. When a vehicle runs the stop arm, the AI-enabled cameras activate instantly, capturing the incident with multiple angles — a wide-angle lens, a forward-facing camera, and a rear-facing camera — to ensure that the vehicle and license plate are clearly visible. “They’ll turn on and capture your license plate,” the representative explained. “We can actually issue a citation based off the video that was captured.”
Hamilton is now part of Pro-Vision’s Always Safe program, ensuring the systems remain updated and fully functional at all times. The switch to web-based technology also eliminates the daily need to manually pull SD cards, giving staff immediate access to footage. “We are now going to be web-based so that we can log in at any time and check the cameras and no longer have to pull SD cards every morning,” said HCS Transportation Supervisor, Kathy Dykema. “If we have a red light runner, it will send me an alert right away. I’ll be able to pull that footage right after it happens and send that off to Officer Dekkinga.”
The urgency behind these improvements is clear. Hamilton experiences multiple red-light violations every day, particularly along M-40. “We have a lot of red light runners on a given day, especially on M-40 — we could have five to six red light runners,” Dykema added. While children do not cross the road at that location, violations also occur frequently on side streets where students are at greater risk. “These cars are not aware. They’re not paying attention. They’re on their phones. People are running our reds. So this way we will have footage of that."
The district is emphasizing community awareness as part of the rollout. Drivers are reminded that when a school bus’s yellow lights turn on, they must begin slowing down and prepare to stop — just as they would at a traffic signal. “All lanes of travel must stop,” Deputy Dekkinga explains. “Even if that school bus is in the far right lane, the other three lanes of travel do have to come to a stop.”
For Hamilton Community Schools, the goal is simple: to ensure that every student arrives at and leaves school safely. “When the kids are at school, it’s our job to make sure they’re safe,” Dekkinga added. “Even when they’re on the bus, we have that same obligation to ensure that they get home safely.”
