If approved by the Board of Education, Carrollton City Schools students will be enjoying radio-like programs designed just for them on the school buses next school fall.

Director of Transportation Skip Veljkov heard about the service, called Bus Radio, at a conference for school transportation administrators and thought it would be a good way to keep students occupied on the bus ride home.

“Idle time,” Veljkov said. “The kids are on the school bus and it’s idle. They’ve finished their day, and they’ve got really nothing to do except get into trouble.”

Cobb County School District started testing Bus Radio in some of its buses in September and has had nothing but positive feedback from the drivers, according to Doug Goodwin, system communications specialist.

“The drivers noticed an almost immediate improvement in the behavior of students and reported fewer discipline problems ultimately,” Goodwin said.

Bus Radio is a prerecorded program that is downloaded by satellite each night to the receivers on the buses. It offers different programs designed for students by age group “ Kindergarten through fifth grades, sixth through eighth and high school. The Carrollton buses are divided by Kindergarten through fifth and sixth through twelfth and the programs will be tailored to those age groups, Veljkov said.

Each program is about an hour long and includes roughly eight minutes of commercials, Goodwin said. The commercials pay for the program, allowing it to be offered for free to school systems. The system can monitor the advertising and nix any that it feels is inappropriate, he added.

“We can opt out if there’s something that the district doesn’t approve of,” Goodwin said. “It really provides a lot of control and it keeps a very age-appropriate kind of entertainment option without having to subject our kids to the mainstream media.”

Veljkov said the company provided him with a CD of a sample program. It includes ads for things like school supplies.

“This advertising never interferes with any of the policies and principles of your school system,” he said. “For instance, they would never advertise anything that’s non-nutritional.”

The fact that the program is pre-recorded also allows the students to request their favorite songs and for the schools to request event like upcoming games or concerts be broadcast on the program for the kids. It also allows songs requested by students to be reviewed beforehand so those with inappropriate lyrics can be substituted with similar songs with appropriate lyrics.

Carrollton’s bus drivers are excited about the idea, Veljkov said; they can be distracted while driving by rowdy students, a safety issue for everyone on the bus.

“The driver’s trying to drive a large vehicle through traffic,” he said. “They don’t have really a lot of time to entertain the kids. So we thought maybe this would be a good idea to help settle them down, so they could have a safer ride.”

Another safety feature is the panic button on the receiver. If there were any emergency on the bus, the driver could hit the panic button and it would activate an open microphone so that authorities could hear everything happening on the bus. It also informs the authorities of the location of the bus through Global Positioning System tracking.

“This was of great interest to us,” Veljkov said. “Part of this came back from working with SWAT teams on hostage situations. One of the things that they reported was most helpful was an open mic.”

If the school board approves Bus Radio, the receivers will be installed over the summer, and it will be available for use when school starts, he said.