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The way school bus drivers greet their passengers, handle disciplinary issues or respond to a student who’s struggling can have a lasting impact on the youngsters on their bus. Also, because of the sensitive nature of their profession, school bus drivers are susceptible to ending up in the media spotlight.
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As I work on a story on best practices for conducting interviews, some sources have stressed to me how important it is to screen for critical qualities that you can’t train on, such as a positive attitude and an assertive personality.
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Beyond its vital role in education, the school bus has provided a home on wheels for many who have sought to simplify their lives or to travel the country. The yellow bus also represents an important economic opportunity for hundreds of thousands of people, including an African refugee who came to the U.S.
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Beyond his contributions in trade magazine publishing, what you may not know about Ed Bobit is the crucial role he played in the survival of the National Association for Pupil Transportation in its early years. As Mike Martin puts it, "There would be no NAPT without Ed Bobit. Period."
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Sometimes the best way to tell a story is through visuals, and our readers have provided us with many compelling ones. Whether photos or videos, we are looking to you to continue to help us get the most accurate view of your day-to-day experiences.
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One interesting detail in the journey of a South Carolina stop-arm camera measure through the legislative process is the role that a photo played. Bill sponsor Sen. Thomas Alexander showed the shocking picture to other legislators to help galvanize support for the bill.
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Previously, I discussed the notion that districts have a responsibility to be “in the transportation business,” which some disagree with. Here, I want to draw attention to issues that arise when districts decide to cut school bus service. As shown in the Etiwanda (Calif.) School District example, increased traffic around schools is one of the key problems. ...
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We are well aware of the problem of motorists illegally passing school buses that are stopped for students who are boarding or disembarking. Another problem that we hadn’t heard of is drivers passing a stopped bus, realizing what they’d done and then backing up their car to where they should have stopped. A school bus driver contacted us about this issue ...
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A school board member at a Virginia district told the Washington Post, “We are not in the transportation business. We are in the education business.” That statement seems misguided and even unsettling. Yes, school districts’ primary responsibility is to educate children. But that doesn’t mean it’s their only responsibility. …
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We’ve all had personal and professional accomplishments that we’re particularly proud of. One of my top professional accomplishments is learning and writing about the ins and outs of an industry that I knew very little about when I started working for this publication. For Shane Kirley, whom we've reported on in the past, obtaining his CDL was one of his “best accomplishments.”
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Rather than resting on the fact that the yellow bus is the long-established safest form of school transportation, we need to be constantly asking ourselves this question: Could school buses be safer? When we ask that question, we have to consider lap-shoulder belts, which has long been a contentious issue in the industry. ...
Read More →When I have spoken with pupil transportation professionals, they have relayed to me the importance of communicating with their staff on all aspects of the operation that affect their jobs in order to safely transport students to and from school. Michael Shields of Salem-Keizer Public Schools in Salem, Ore., has frequent meetings with his staff ...
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