New (school) year’s resolutions

At this point in the calendar year, many of us have fallen behind on — or maybe even forgotten about — our New Year’s resolutions.

My resolution for 2012 was to read one book per month, which may seem like a snail’s pace to any speed readers out there. Yet I’m currently about three books off track. (That is, unless you count Goodnight Moon, Green Eggs and Ham and the many other bedtime stories I read to my kids.)

I thought often of my New Year’s resolution during the summer, which theoretically would be an ideal time to get more reading done. But I’ve been getting caught up in home improvement projects and finding even less time to crack open a book.

As schools and school buses were getting back in gear, this question occurred to me: Since you work in pupil transportation, do you set new school year’s resolutions?

Go for the goals
If you haven’t already planned some new school year’s resolutions (OK — maybe you’re more likely to call them goals), you might find some good ideas in our September issue.

For example, we have a profile of two Cincinnati school districts that have saved tens of thousands of dollars by sharing their transportation service.

Kristi Hooper, the joint transportation director, mentioned that one of her goals for this school year is to teach the staff at one of her districts how to work with video clips from their bus surveillance cameras. The key reason behind this is that when Hooper is at the other district’s transportation office, someone will still be able to access the clips.

That specific initiative might not be applicable to your operation, but in a broader sense, are there some functions that only you know how to perform but that you could teach other members of your staff? Then when you’re out of the office, those tasks could still get done (possibly without anyone having to get a hold of you on your cell phone).

Hooper has implemented another noteworthy objective: She makes a point of putting in face time with all of her employees on a daily basis. Particularly since she’s splitting her day between two transportation offices, this has helped her stay informed on everything that’s happening, and it has helped the staffs from the two districts work as a team.

Get connected
Here’s another idea to consider if you’re looking for another initiative for this school year: Get involved in an industry association. Whether it’s your state group or a national organization, maybe there’s an opportunity to become more connected with your colleagues by joining a committee, serving on the board of directors or just getting back into the annual conference if you haven’t gone in recent years.

Do you have any new school year’s resolutions? What do you hope to achieve before summer suddenly rolls around again?

— Thomas McMahon, executive editor