NEWFANE, N.Y. — Just days before the start of the new school year, a dozen bus aides with the Newfane School District were told they were out of a job.

"We had a bus garage meeting, which we do every year before school starts, last Wednesday. At that meeting we were told we were being cut down from 16 to four, we had no idea," said bus aide, Amy Luckman. 

Now 12 buses that carry children in kindergarten through fourth grade, some as young as four years old, will go without a bus aide.

"We cross our children, so the bus aide gets off. If they need to cross, we go out with them," Luckman said. She aded that bus aides also keep an eye out for bullying. "There's lots of bullying on the buses, fights, even in elementary school."

"If I'm looking at my mirror at those children, I'm not watching the road, so every second my eyes are off the road is dangerous to anyone walking on the street, a car in front of me," said bus driver Diane Steel. "I can handle my bus but it's so much easier with a bus aide and the safety for the children on the bus and community."

In a letter to parents, Superintendent Michael Baumann said the decision was made to offset an increase in cost between the bus company and the school district.

It said the four remaining bus aides would be rotate routes and each bus will be equipped with four cameras.

But both aides and drivers agree that cameras can only do so much.

"All you gotta do is scrunch down. The seats are so high you're not gonna see it," Steel said. "How are you supposed to see a kid choking on food in the back of the bus? You're not gonna see that."

These cuts come  a few months after the drivers and aides joined Teamsters Local 449 union.

The group plans to speak out at Tuesday night's school board meeting and say they will take action if the 12 aides are not brought back.

Spectrum News reached out to the school district for comment and have not heard back.