Indiana state director Pete Baxter (left) accepts the SBF award from Publisher Frank Di Giacomo.
Pete Baxter has gotten his share of
thank-you notes throughout his career
in pupil transportation, but one
in particular stands out in his mind.
After a safety presentation that Baxter,
state director of pupil transportation in Indiana,
gave at an in-service training session,
a veteran school bus driver wrote to him describing
an epiphany of sorts.
“She had just written a quick note and basically
said that after all her years of attending
safety meetings, she finally got it,” Baxter
recalled. “It was simply that in-service
wasn’t done to her but for her — she saw the
value in why she came.”
For nearly three decades, Baxter has been
sharing with the school bus community his
teaching talent, leadership skills and passion
for keeping kids safe.
In recognition of his efforts, Baxter became
the 35th recipient of SCHOOL BUS FLEET’s
Administrator of the Year award.
SBF Publisher Frank Di Giacomo presented
the award at the National Association for
Pupil Transportation (NAPT) conference in
Myrtle Beach, S.C., in late October.
Years of service
Baxter began his career in pupil transportation
in 1980, when he was hired by the Indiana
Department of Education as an instructor
for the classroom training of new school
bus drivers. He is now director of the department’s
Office of School Transportation and
Emergency Planning.
Baxter also serves as the administrator of
Indiana’s school bus committee, which has
regulation authority for school bus construction
and driver standards in the state.
Over the years, Baxter has held two of the
most prominent roles in the school bus industry:
president of NAPT and president of
the National Association of State Directors of
Pupil Transportation Services.
He is currently serving as chair of the
15th National Congress on School Transportation.
In that position, he has been
leading efforts to improve the processes
for updating the industry’s specifications and procedures manual.
Accessible office
At the Indiana Department of Education,
Baxter has sought to make his
office efficient and user-friendly for the
school bus operations that report to it.
This is achieved in part through electronic
data gathering.
Transportation departments throughout
the state need to submit certain
pieces of information to the state, so
Baxter’s office has established convenient
data collection tools. For example,
school bus operations can electronically
send their observation of
behind-the-wheel driving hours.
In its school bus driver training program,
Baxter’s office targets two key
areas: One is legal compliance, “to
make sure that drivers understand
the uniqueness of the statutes that
govern them in our state,”
Baxter says.
The other is loading
and unloading children,
where following procedures
is particularly critical
to maintaining safety.
When outside-of-the-bus
fatalities have occurred
in Indiana, Baxter’s office has analyzed the accidents to see
what can be learned from them and
how training can be improved.
“If we need to tweak what we do from
the department level, then we do that to
make sure we have the best information
so that core part of the job is done well at
every bus stop,” Baxter says.
Traveling and teaching
In addition to leading training in
Indiana, Baxter is regularly invited to
give presentations in other states. He
says that, schedule permitting, he likes
to accept the invitations because “it’s
in-service for me, and I get a chance
to interact with my peers and share
some of the things that I’ve learned
with drivers.”
Baxter estimates that he has given 50
presentations in 10 states.
It is the teaching of bus drivers that
Baxter finds most rewarding in his line
of work, he says. “The fulfillment for
me is helping them do their job,” he
says. “That’s how I look at my role in
the department: helping them provide
safe rides for kids.”