Updated at 11:50 a.m. with additional information from Wylie ISD.
A Rockwall Independent School District bus driver is accused of improperly filming children on his bus route, police say.
Michael Paul Smith, 43, was arrested Jan. 10 on a charge of invasive visual recording and released a day later on bond. His bail had been set at $7,500.
Smith drove bus No. 73 and his primary route was for Springer Elementary School and Utley Middle School students, according to police.
Surveillance footage from the bus shows Smith using his cellphone camera to record children as they got on the bus and walked past him, police records say.
Smith wrote in an email to school district officials that he had recorded students for years and said, "I have no business being a school bus driver," police documents show.
Police obtained a search warrant for Smith's home after a parent of the district submitted an anonymous tip about him that prompted an investigation.
The parent had told school officials that Smith "had made comments to their elementary school-aged daughter about how nice she looks," according to the affidavit for a search warrant.
The district then began an internal investigation and found at least 11 different incidents caught on video surveillance that they believed were "troubling," the search warrant affidavit says.
In at least one of the videos, police say Smith could be seen turning on his phone camera and then placing the phone at his right knee, appearing "to be covertly filming students as they entered the bus."
In one instance, Smith tried to film underneath a middle school girl's skirt as she got onto the bus and walked past him in November, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
"It appears that the female student had no knowledge that Mr. Smith was attempting to record her in such an intrusive manner," the arrest affidavit stated.
Other surveillance videos show Smith closely watching female students as they got on the bus and as they walked past him, according to both the arrest and search warrant affidavits.
Smith provided a written statement to district officials in which he admitted to using his camera but denied doing so "in a manner harmful to children," according to the search warrant affidavit.
But the day after Smith had submitted that statement, he sent a district official an email contradicting himself, the search warrant states.
"I want to formally apologize for not being truthful with you," the email begins.
"I am now confessing to you, yes, I was discreetly filming students on my bus," Smith wrote in the email. "I have been doing this for many years. The reason I do this is irrelevant. I can tell you it's a tool I use. I broke district policy and I most definitely broke a law."
Smith wrote that he "put children's lives at risk" and would work with officials on his case.
In the email, Smith claims he struggles with a learning disability and has been bullied.
"But to put me in charge of 35 to 50 kids is insane. So in conclusion, I accept my termination," Smith writes, according to the search warrant affidavit.
Smith had previously worked for Wylie Independent School District, according to a Facebook post from the district.
He had chosen to resign in May 2019 after a similar allegation was made against him by a student on one of his routes, Wylie ISD said.
Authorities investigated the case, but could not find enough evidence for a charge, according to the district.
The case in Rockwall remains under investigation, police said, and anyone with any information is asked to call police at 972-772-6703.
