Last week we discussed the NTSB’s recommendations on school bus fire suppression.  This week we take a look at industry responses.

NTSB recommended on Tuesday, June 18, that U.S. school bus manufacturers ensure that no hazardous quantity of gas or flame can pass through any opening in what it referred to as a “firewall” that separates the engine compartment and the passenger compartment in newly manufactured school buses.  Keeping flames from reaching the passenger compartment, or at least delaying their spread, would buy valuable time for students and drivers to safely evacuate.

NTSB also reiterated a previous recommendation made to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration—that it revise Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 302 to adopt more rigorous performance standards for interior flammability and smoke emission characteristics that are already in use by the aviation and passenger rail industries.  It was of the opinion that school buses that transport students with disabilities, especially those in wheelchairs, should definitely be equipped with fire suppression systems.

The National School Transportation Association on Wednesday expressed concern about any resulting regulation from NTSB’s recommendations that would retrofit existing school buses, as well as equip new vehicles with fire suppression systems.

“NSTA cautions that initiatives that include retrofitting existing vehicles may not be consistent with original vehicle design, integrity and warranty standards,” it said in a statement.  “NSTA also recommends that initiatives should be fully funded or should be made at the state and local level where school budgets are resolved. This will help assure that well-meaning initiatives do not have the unintended effect of reducing the availability of yellow buses, thereby forcing more children into less safe modes of transportation for their trips to and from school.”

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has adopted a new recommendation to require fire suppression systems in all new school buses—and to retrofit those already in use. The decision is in response to a fatal December 2017 fire in Oakland, Iowa that killed the driver and a 16-year-old student.

The initial recommendation to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) limited the equipment to newly manufactured school buses and extended the recommendation to all school bus manufacturers. But the board approved the amendment that the recommendations extend that requirement to retrofitting all existing school buses with fire suppression systems.

NTSB’s investigation concluded that had the Riverside Community School District bus had a fire suppression system installed in the engine compartment, it could have provided additional time for 74-year-old driver Donnie Hendricks and student Megan Klindt to safely evacuate.

NTSB also urged NHTSA to develop a standard to improve the construction of firewalls between school bus engine compartments and the passenger compartment to limit the passage of toxic gases and heat. The investigation concluded that the gases and heat led to the incapacitation of the bus driver and student, which led to their deaths.

“The more time, the better the evacuation will be,” said NTSB investigator Michele Beckjord. “You’re never going to prevent all fires, but what you can do is if the fire does occur, to quickly put it out and to keep it from reflashing.”

NTSB found that about 1.2 school bus fires occur each day.

Continuing our discussion on the school bus driver shortage, we found a school district that has implemented an unique way of helping to solve the problem.

Prince William County Public Schools in Virginia is experiencing the national school bus driver shortage just as others are.  One of the schools there, Parkside Middle School, turned to teachers to help students arrive at school via the big yellow bus.

Parkside Middle School is located in the historic Civil War Manassas area of Prince William County, 30 miles northeast of Washington, D.C. It is in a unique location and has no students who walk to school.  The district has 31 school buses in service, but routes are one hour long, on a good day.

The district developed a program to encourage teachers who were interested in obtaining their commercial driver’s license (CDL). The program consists of all the initial training applicants need to obtain their license, but it would be conducted based on the teacher’s availability. This provides teachers with an opportunity to drive their route in the morning, teach throughout the day, and then drive their route in the afternoon.

The program was offered to teachers in November, and so far 10 teachers have applied to obtain their CDL. There are currently four teachers that drive out of Parkside Middle School.  The training process was hosted by the transportation department. The program was started with 24 hours of classroom training that was run either after school or on weekends.

The teachers had an option to attend a four-hour class once a week for six weeks, or three eight-hour classes held on Saturdays. The second portion was taking a hands-on CPR training class, and then taking a four-part permit test at the DMV.  Once the teachers received their permits, they had to fulfill about 24 hours of driver training that was scheduled for after-school hours.

The last part was completing a road test, and then driving with a behind-the-wheel trainer until it was determined that the applicant was ready to be on their own.

On top of getting paid their teacher salary, they receive an additional starting bus driver salary of $18.21 per hour.

This is a way that teachers can supplement their income during the year and can even use their CDL license in the summer to drive commercial vehicles.

Legislators in Augusta, Maine, have introduced a bill that aims to reduce the school bus driver shortage in the state by expanding access to unemployment benefits and awarding training grants.

LD 1641, introduced by Sen. Erin Herbig, would allow public school bus drivers to collect unemployment benefits over the summer and create a fund to award districts with grants for training for school bus drivers between academic years.

In a public hearing on the bill on May 13, Herbig said that the school bus driver shortage “is particularly serious in some rural communities like mine,” and added that office assistants and custodians are being asked to drive routes.

Two public school bus drivers provided testimony in support of the bill, according to news source VillageSoup. One, Cindy Ludden, who drives for Regional School Unit 3, said that more than one-third of the district’s drivers are receiving social security payments and “could be done working at the drop of a hat.” She added that obtaining unemployment when there is no work “would help people get from paycheck to paycheck and allow them to return to work, driving the school bus year after year.”

Also providing testimony on the bill at the hearing was Pat Hinckley, the transportation and facilities administrator at the Maine Department of Education. Hinckley expressed concerns that provisions in LD 1641 may create an opportunity for outside entities with funding to have influence over the training.  “Opening the door to gifts of money from private entities has potential to influence training decisions, result in decisions made based on favors, instead of making training decisions based on course safety content, quality, strategic planning, and instructor ability,” Hinckley’s testimony stated.

The bill is currently awaiting further review from the Education and Cultural Affairs Committee, according to the state Legislature website.

Things for school districts and states to think about to reduce their shortage of school bus drivers.

We haven’t touched on the subject of lap belts in a while. So let’s see what’s happening.

The Avon Lake City Council in Ohio, at its latest meeting, unanimously agreed to support a pilot program for Avon Lake City Schools that will install lap-shoulder belts on school buses. The program includes the purchase of two 72-passenger replacement school buses with lap-shoulder seat belts, which was passed by the district’s board of education on Feb. 12.

Rudy Breglia, a citizen advocate with the School Bus Safety Alliance, who was honored at the beginning of the meeting with a certificate from Mayor Greg Zilka, has been advocating for lap-shoulder belts since November 2016, when he first learned of the fatal school bus crash in Chattanooga, Tennessee, that killed six students and left more than 20 others injured.

Breglia said the city is “providing a model that will encourage other districts and cities to step up and enhance their children’s safety by starting a lap-shoulder belt installation program.” He also said that Ohio is at a turning point in terms of school bus safety, noting the recent efforts of Beachwood City Council in approving lap-shoulder belts in school buses.

Beachwood City Council passed legislation in December to require lap-shoulder belts on all new school buses by providing up to $250,000 in funding to pay for the equipment.

The legislation, which was initially prompted by classroom discussions among city council members and third grade students, marked the city as the first in the state to implement such efforts. The buses, which are expected to be ordered this spring, would be used as for field trips and events.

“Most accidents that involve a school bus actually happen outside the bus, when children run into the road, step too close to the bus, or even kneel down to get something that has fallen under the bus,” said Leslie Kilgore, VP of engineering for Thomas Built Buses. “As diligent as bus drivers may be, sometimes they just can’t see a child around certain areas of the outside of the bus.”

Research indicates that nine out of 10 school districts in the U.S. and Canada are not currently using 360-degree camera systems to detect children at school bus stops, based on STN reader reports. The reasons why go beyond the expected answer of budgetary constraints and vehicle replacement cycles.

The need for the eventual, widespread adoption of sufficient exterior child-detection systems at bus stops seems especially urgent for younger students, who are more easily missed by drivers in blind spots. The National School Bus Loading & Unloading Zone Survey that was conducted by the Kansas State Department of Education, found that 73 percent of school bus stop fatalities over the past 50 years occurred to students who were 9 years of age and younger.

It appears that cost is only one of the factors in the low adoption rate of 360-degree camera systems that are designed to remove blind spots. The industry has yet had a demand of such systems, apparently due in part to a relative lack of competition and lack of understanding how the systems work.

Product acceptance in the industry is probably at least a decade away. The goal of quickly shrinking the Danger Zone via wide scale video and microwave systems will likely remain elusive for now.

In this industry, student safety is obviously of great concern to us. However, two recent, frightening incidents should also turn our attention toward the safety of bus drivers.

In Minneapolis, Minnesota, a school bus driver was shot at and wounded in February by a motorist because the bus driver reportedly sideswiped his van. The bus driver was taken by ambulance for a wound to his left arm and graze wound on his head. Thankfully, the one student aboard at the time, an 8-year-old girl, wasn’t injured.

After shooting at the bus, the motorist walked to the driver’s side of the bus and called 911. He told officers that he feared for his safety and that was why he shot at the bus driver. However, video footage showed the defendant had retreated to a safe spot before walking in front of the bus and shooting.

Meanwhile, in Detroit, Michigan, it was widely reported that two men boarded a school bus and beat and robbed the driver in front of the students on board. The reason: his bus apparently grazed the side of a vehicle and knocked off a mirror. The bus surveillance camera captured the January incident.

These two incidents, both of which made national news, demonstrate the importance of providing drivers proper training and support. And one form of support can be critical — having incidents recorded on camera.  Thankfully, cameras caught these violent acts, and in the case of the Detroit incident, those cameras were on the school bus.

Video surveillance cameras are also helpful in managing or investigating incidents impacting student safety.

Although school buses are the safest form of transportation for students, it is heartening to see more attention being paid to keeping an eye on safety — for both students and drivers alike.

Pupil transportation offers numerous opportunities for staff members to do a job they love. While some bus drivers prefer to continue transporting students, others move into mid-level jobs or management and leadership.

As Baby Boomers leave the workforce, other pupil transportation staff will have more opportunities to advance. To help them achieve their career goals, many school districts provide education, training, and mentorship — investments that pay off in employee retention and satisfaction.

Drivers can move into any position within transportation if they’re willing to get some additional education.  Drivers who want to advance, first become a driver mentor and/or driver trainer. The drivers get additional training and work more hours in each of these positions.  After serving in those jobs, more doors open: they can become a lead driver trainer, dispatcher, or router. The next step from these positions is area manager.

Alternately, school bus drivers can move into maintenance and advance from mechanic’s helper to mechanic to lead mechanic to shop manager.

Finally, drivers who have a bachelor’s degree can become an assistant director, and, if they have a master’s degree, a director.

For school bus drivers who want to stay in the department, they can seek extensive training, including certification courses and classes in communications and management. The drivers can receive a salary increase for each certification they earn.

All of our past blogs on the subject of stop-arm cameras have been about catching motorists that have passed stopped school buses.  But recently we found an article on motorists complaining about receiving traffic tickets for just that.

The Courthouse News Service has reported that Dallas, TX drivers have filed a class action lawsuit against the city and its schools, claiming they are illegally issuing traffic tickets for passing stopped school buses, using photos taken by cameras on the bus’ stop arms.  The plaintiffs claimed the Texas Transportation Code grants no authority to local authorities to pass ordinances that conflict with it.

“No bill, law, statute or constitutional amendment has ever been passed that would authorize any local government in Texas to enact camera-enforced school bus stop arm ordinances which conflict with statutorily established ‘Rules of the Road’ in Texas,” the 53-page complaint stated.

A motorist was fined $300 after a bench trial in Carrollton Municipal Court for passing a stopped school bus. He said the photographic enforcement and administrative adjudication of school bus stop-arm violations was never authorized by the state: That bills in the legislature that would have allowed it failed in the past four legislative sessions.  A non binding opinion by the Texas Attorney General’s office in 2002 concluded cities could not use automated enforcement equipment to impose a civil penalty for running a school bus.

“The Attorney General noted Texas cities were prohibited from doing this, because making the running of a school bus camera a civil penalty would conflict with state law that makes the running of a school bus camera a crime (a misdemeanor) under Transportation Code,” the complaint stated.

Either way, passing a stopped school bus should have consequences for the motorist.

Keeping children safe on the school bus is not only the role of the bus driver, but also the role of the school district and community.  Here are five tips for school bus safety that provide another way of looking at what’s needed for safety for our students:

1. The importance of a comprehensive training program is a cornerstone for student transportation providers. Whether you choose to self-operate or contract your school bus transportation, a comprehensive training program should include quality classroom instruction, behind-the-wheel skill courses, and road supervisors that periodically monitor driver performance.2. A student transportation provider must demonstrate that a positive safety culture begins at the top level in the organization. The strongest predictor of safety performance is leadership and safety culture. A leader should conduct touchpoints with team members to reinforce safe critical behaviors. Recognizing team members that adhere to safety policies and procedures should be encouraged.3. Recognizing the key role of dispatchers is integral to promoting safety. The dispatcher, along with other safety-minded operations leaders, can administer “Fit for Duty” checks with drivers. Dispatchers should be trained to ensure every driver is physically and mentally prepared to safely operate a school bus. Dispatchers can also provide a calming influence when communicating to drivers, especially in a difficult situation.

   4. School administrators should identify the appropriate technology innovations that support the district’s strategy and financial plan. New technology should be considered once a positive safety culture and the appropriate policies and procedures are in place.

   5. A rock-solid partnership between the school district, parents, and the student transportation provider will strengthen the safety environment, allowing a positive experience of working together, for the shared purpose of keeping all students safe.