With the ongoing problem with not enough drivers and/or school buses to transport students to and from school, Lower Kuskokwin School District (LSKD) in Bethel, Alaska is turning to taxi drivers as a way to transport students to school until new school buses arrive, reports YKUK.

As school started this fall, both administrators and parents were looking for other options to get students to and from school. LKSD was unable to agree on a new contract with Golden Eagle, the district’s school bus transportation provider for over 20 years. That left LKSD scrambling for a solution, with little time left before school classes began.

A recent deal with Kusko Cab might be a short-term solution. The owner of the cab company, Naim Shabani, said he would try to operate as close to a bus service as possible.  The students are receiving cab vouchers and Kusko Cab will pick students up at the designated stops throughout town. LKSD will only be using the cab service until it receives its newly purchased buses,

Parents have their own concerns with a taxi for transporting their children to school. Some are worried about their younger children being in the car alone with drivers, while others are upset about the increased traffic the cabs could cause.

The school district is also providing reimbursements to parents who drive their children to school during this time, with the rates based on distance.

The school superintendent said this new bus system will be better in the long run, even though the first few days were rocky.

When floodwaters hit Louisiana in August 2016, the effects were devastating. The flood damaged an estimated 110,000 homes and 100,000 vehicles, resulting in more than $10 billion in losses. Its impact on the state’s school system restricted 265,000 students’ access to education.

“That flood happened only a couple days after the beginning of the school year,” says Gary Reese, chief of student support services for East Baton Rouge Parish Schools. “It flooded eight of our schools and three administrative sites.”

In addition to floodwaters closing schools and affecting 30% of the parish’s students and staff, Reese says the school system’s transportation department lost 114 buses out of a fleet of about 650, delaying school through Labor Day. Within the first weeks after the waters receded, East Baton Rouge Parish Schools purchased 68 school buses to bolster the diminished fleet.

“I went straight to the vendors and said, ‘I need buses, and I need them now,’” Reese says. “They did a search across the nation and found new buses. Some of them I’m told were due for other school systems that very graciously conceded and let those come to us.  The vendors got these buses from everywhere they could.” Because of school bus regulations specific to the state of Louisiana, vehicles had to be retrofitted before they could be used.
Despite the troubles caused by the flood, there was a silver lining for the East Baton Rouge Parish Schools fleet. Before the flood, the transportation department was evaluating the implementation of propane vehicles over diesel. After losing 114 buses, Reese took the opportunity to find grants that would enable him to replace the lost vehicles with propane models.

Of the opportunity to move forward with propane buses, Reese says, “There’s always something good that comes out of something bad, and that happens to be one of the good.”

Safety issues on school buses affect districts everywhere. From talking and screaming to walking while the bus is in motion, children often don’t realize that their behavior creates serious safety concerns for drivers, and can potentially harm their classmates.

To combat behavioral issues on buses, one district in Tennessee has created a school bus monitor program in hopes of not only breaking bad habits, but educating children on proper safety procedures.

Melissa Garton, transportation coordinator for Dickson County Schools, has worked in school transportation for 20 years.  After talking with other districts in the area, Garton decided to implement a bus monitor program to provide a rotating set of eyes and to aid drivers.  “It kind of just hit me one day that maybe if we had some floating monitors who could be shuffled to some of our buses that give us so much trouble … that that might help us keep our drivers and help with the safety of the students on the bus.”

Monitors rotate through buses or are assigned on an as-needed basis. With 68 regular routes and about 5,800 students riding a bus daily, monitors can stay on a bus for a couple of days or a couple of weeks, depending on student behavior improvement.

All monitors are trained in student management, undergo background checks and drug testing, receive CPR certification, and are taught how to interact with special-needs students, in case they have to substitute for one of the special-needs monitors.

So far, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. Student write-ups have dropped by over 70% on the buses that now have monitors on board.

It has been shown that children respond better when it is explained to them why they shouldn’t do something, instead of just being told not to do it. Rather than just telling kids to sit still or not to yell, explain to them how and why their behavior is potentially dangerous.

Amid all the talk of school violence in the news, it is not uncommon for a student to ask this question.  You may only have a second or two to answer. With school gearing up to start in a matter of days, here are some tips on how to handle the question and the situation should it arise:

-Be prepared, not scared. Don’t be in denial. School violence can happen anywhere.
-Respect every student’s concerns and treat them seriously. They do not see the world through your eyes.
-Look and listen before you talk. Make sure that you are addressing the student’s needs and not your own.
-Assure them they are as safe as can be. Make sure you know your safety procedures for all hazards and practice them if you can.
-Model good behavior, as you would want your students to do.

-Stay calm, cool and collected. Don’t yell or use excessive force if you need to restrain.
-Control your emotions. Show concern, but contain your fear and anger.
-Keep routines. They provide comfort and support.
-Stress the importance of safety procedures so that everyone is accounted for in a safe and orderly fashion.
-Let them know that they have a role to play in keeping their bus safe. Let them know about if you see something, say something. And let them know that if you say something that will keep everyone safe, it is not tattling on someone.
-Starting each day and greeting each student by name and with a smile goes a long way towards creating a safe and orderly bus driving experience.
-Tell them, “Together we make this bus ride as safe as it can be.”

Be ready for the question, “Am I safe on this school bus?”

Bright pink yard signs for recruiting difficult-to-hire school bus drivers have been installed in one North Carolina school district.

A Wake County, N.C. school district is using an unusual way of advertising the benefits of landing a new job driving a flashy vehicle with brightly-colored paint (yellow!!) AND having flex hours, in order to fill its driver vacancies.  After continued challenges trying to fill constant bus driver vacancies, school officials decided earlier this year to increase starting wages and benefits for the drivers—but the shortage is continuing.

So it looks like the Pepto-Bismol-colored yard signs will be staying in place for much or all of 2018, despite several career fairs being held.

It is expected that some school bus drivers will have to drive two routes, until the continued shortage is solved.  Even getting to drive a company car with the mileage paid for, doesn’t seem to be enough of a persuasion any more.

The dilemma of finding school bus drivers continues throughout the nation.

This article at ScaryMommy.com has amused thousands as Sara Opel writes about her adventures as a school bus driver.  Here are the 10 things not to say to your kids’ bus driver that Sara has compiled:

1. “My children will never ride the bus, it’s too dangerous.” A bus is designed to be safe without seat belts. That’s why there are tall padded seats. Your child has a higher chance of being in an accident while you drive them to school. Even if the bus is hit, it sits high off the ground so the damage isn’t done to the area where the kids are (in most cases). Basically, in your average car vs. bus collision…The bus WILL win.2. “My child was bullied on the bus and you did nothing.” Sadly this happens. We do our best to take care of it. Those who are bullying get in trouble–this often involves a trip to the principal, a call to their guardians, and if it is severe enough, they are not allowed to ride the bus anymore.  Did your kid tell me they were bullied? I was making sure the kids crossing the road were not run over by the guy going 50 in a 35 zone and texting, while I could hear his music over my BUS ENGINE (and 77 kids) and flying by the GIANT YELLOW BUS WITH FLASHING LIGHTS!”3. “Are you sure it was my kid?” Yes, I am sure your child, who I have driven since he was in kindergarten (and is now in 5th grade), was trying to strangle his seatmate. Thirteen other kids also say it was your child. It is NOT the first time we have talked about this. Yes, I do have to write a report about it. Yes, there is a chance your child will be suspended from bus rides for the near future. I am not visually impaired. If I were, I would not be allowed to drive the bus.

   4. “Well, the other kids hit him first.” And… the other kid is also in trouble and I just got off the phone with his mom who swears her son would never do such a thing (see above). That does not mean your kid has the right to punch him back. Golden rule, two wrongs don’t make a right, ring a bell?

   5. “Oh yes I know, he/she is a trouble maker.” This really just means, “I know my kid is a pain in the butt, but I am not going to do anything about it.” I am sorry parents but seriously, remember who is the parent and who isn’t. Just tell your kid he/she needs to straighten up or they will be walking to school.

   6. “What do you mean you won’t come to my house?” I live in Vermont. There are a lot of roads we can’t go up. We do not drive up private roads, and other roads we simply can’t make it up. We also need a safe place to turn around, and what might be a nice, easy road in the Summer or even Fall when school starts is not easy in the Winter when there is ice and snow. We are a bus, not an ATV.

   7. “I am so sorry I am late.” I don’t care what your reason is. You made every other child arrive home late because you couldn’t get to your kid’s stop in time. No, I will not drop your Kindergartener off at the bottom of the 3 mile hill to wait for you.

   8. “I am sorry, I didn’t see you.” You would be amazed how many people say this after driving by our lights. I am glad all my kids crossing the road are trained to wait for me to give them a thumbs up before crossing. My response (in my head, if not out loud) is “You didn’t see me? The BIG YELLOW bus with the FLASHING LIGHTS and the FLASHING STOP SIGN? Should you even be allowed to drive?”

   9. “It wasn’t me who passed you.” We call in the license plate numbers of those who pass our lights. In fact, our kids are trained to read them and tell us what the plates are. The police call the person, and they tell the cops it wasn’t them. Oh, so it was not you in the car with the specialty plate that says PASSBUS that is cherry red and a 1966 mustang convertible with the white wall tires that was driven by a female with blond hair, at 3:17pm at the Grille? My bad.

   10. “How can you possibly do your job and not kill someone?” A school bus driver is not glamorous. I love the hours; I get my kids’ vacations off and I don’t have to pay for after school care. But more than all that, I love my job.

We could all find a little more humor in our jobs each day !!

Metropolitan School District of Wayne Township in Indiana turned to Transfinder to find ways to reduce costs without impacting safety. The result was almost $1 million in annual savings.

Not long ago, the school district had a $14 million to $17 million shortfall due to property tax reform. The district, which has 18 schools and approximately 16,400 students, was facing tough financial decisions concerning its debt service and transportation expenditures.

To search for efficiencies in transportation, Superintendent Jeff Butts engaged with Transfinder, specifically looking to apply its software solutions and expertise in transportation routing, scheduling and communications.

Transfinder helps school districts deploy safe, efficient and cost-effective student transportation through its knowledge of logistics and planning. This is also in addition to substantial cost savings through innovative route planning, personnel and maintenance solutions.

“Anytime you make a significant transition to a three-tier busing system, change start and finish times, and change routes for all those children who are riding, that’s a lot of moving parts,” says Butts. “While our staff is phenomenal, Transfinder had the expertise to come in and make sure that we were making as few mistakes as we possibly could.”

Wayne Township has seen an annual savings of just under $1 million by using Transfinder solutions. Buses are running routes efficiently by eliminating redundant stops. Transfinder helped the district reduce the number of drivers needed by 30, a key advantage at a time when there is a national driver shortage. The overall number of both bus drivers needed and buses in service have been reduced, creating significant ongoing personnel and maintenance savings.

To continue our ongoing discussion of seat and lap-shoulder belts, we have found that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is seeking school districts that are interested in equipping school buses with lap-shoulder seat belts, to participate in a five-year study on how the occupant restraints affect on-board student behavior.

NHTSA issued an RFP (request for proposal) to select a contractor to determine the indirect effects of the three-point seat belts.  Several transportation officials have said that their use of lap-shoulder belts has improved student behavior and limited driver distraction.

This past November at the National Association for State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services annual conference in Columbus, Ohio, NHTSA Highway Safety Specialist Jeremy Gunderson told attendees that the agency seeks to use projects such as this study to correct misinformation regarding the seat belt issue, since it receives several questions each month on the topic.

The first step in NHTSA’s project is to identify existing research on how lap-shoulder belts can improve student behavior on the bus, notably by keeping them seated face forward.   “This will ensure (that) a baseline measure of possible indirect effects is captured,” NHTSA writes in the RPF. “This project would also require that the selected jurisdiction plan to implement an education component for bus drivers, students, parents, teachers and other school officials, to emphasize the importance of using seat belts on school buses.”

The winning contractor will be required to identify and analyze existing research on the evaluated indirect effects of lap-shoulder belts, as well as collect and analyze data from school districts selected to participate in the study.

A full report is due to NHTSA for review within 46 months of awarding the contract, with a final report due to be completed and published by 60 months.

Any effort to keep our children safe is worth the time and research.

When taking your school bus to a reputable repair shop, they will perform inspections of each item in a preventive maintenance (PM) checklist.  This is more than just looking at components. They will pay attention to the little things, the little problems, making repairs to the smallest of defects.

In doing so, the larger potential problems will be repaired and never develop into real problems. Some technicians focus on the problem at hand, fixing items that have failed, but they fail to repair the cause of the failure. This causes repeat problems.  Each problem has a cause. Finding and repairing the cause prevents future problems from occurring.

A PM checklist should be organized in a systematic method that is meant to be followed in order from top to bottom. In doing so, an organized routine will be developed and remembered, and the technician will get better and faster at it as time goes by.

The school bus drivers will appreciate a job well done even if it takes a little longer. They will appreciate not having to drive an old spare bus repeatedly.

Doing it right the first time increases reliability and — most importantly — safety.

If you’ve been following our blogs, we have talked about the National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB’s) calling for lap-shoulder belts on school buses. Recently the NTSB decided to direct that recommendation, not to the feds, but to the states.

In past crash investigations and reports, NTSB has pointed to the benefits of lap-shoulder belts for student passengers, particularly in side impacts and rollovers. The agency has even produced a video in which it shows that properly buckled passengers will stay inside the seating compartment in any type of crash.

In the May meeting, the NTSB reiterated its assertion that lap-shoulder belts provide the best protection for school bus passengers. In crash analysis, investigators found that the swerving of the bus threw passengers out of their seating compartments before the impact, and “compartmentalization was rendered ineffective,” according to the agency.  They also listed the lack of lap-shoulder belts on the bus as “contributing to the severity of crashes.”

Several lawmakers launched an effort in Congress to require seat belts on school buses nationwide. However, the bill doesn’t specify that the mandate be for lap-shoulder belts — only that the Department of Transportation “consider” the benefits and NTSB findings on lap-shoulder belts.

As state legislatures convene for their next sessions, look for lap-shoulder belts to be back on the agenda.  For now, it remains up to the states to make the call on seat belts for school buses.