http://www.schoolbusfleet.com/Channel/Management-Training/Articles/2002/02/Maintaining-Order-on-Unruly-Middle-School-Routes.aspx

The industry is highlighting the environmental benefits of jumping on the school bus on the 40th anniversary of Earth Day.
Whether its the “greener” engines that sit beneath the hood of the newest school buses or the reduction in emissions that comes with either retrofits or parents parking their cars and sending their children to school on the bus, the industry as a whole is taking a moment to highlight the eco-friendly trends that have been gaining greater momentum in the last few years.

Contractor FirstGroup America was quick to point out some numbers to back up it the title of its recent press release, “This Earth Day, Save the Environment! Ride a Bus!” The release cites data from the American School Bus Council and the American Association of Public Transportation that says using public transportation saves the equivalent of 4.2 billion gallons of gasoline a year. School buses can also save a total of 2.3 billion gallons of fuel each year for the 17.3 million cars they replace on the road. Additionally, one person switching to public transit can reduce daily carbon emissions by 20 pounds, or more than 4,800 pounds in a year.

IC Bus will be announcing the the winner of America’s Greenest School, as well as who will take home the title of Canada’s Greenest School. Both schools will become the proud owners of a hybrid-electric school bus and win a “green” audit of their school. The company planned on announcing both today.

Meanwhile, the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress released a report on the eve of Earth Day that shows rising oil prices could hurt the country’s economic recovery and hinder progress on energy-efficiency policies.

“As we celebrate Earth Day, we can be proud of all that our country has accomplished to protect our air, water, and land,” said U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), chair of the JEC. “Put simply, rising prices could simultaneously threaten our economic recovery and make it more difficult to pursue clean energy policies that move the country away from our dependence on oil. When consumers are paying more at the tank, they have less to spend on fueling our economy.”

Source http://stnonline.com

As of Wednesday, the Danger Zones program had been shipped to 1,270 school districts across the U.S.
The offer still stands, and Jeff Cassell, vice president of school district operations for the School Bus Safety Co., said that about 25 new requests are still coming in per day.

“Many who have already presented the program to their drivers have called to say how good the program is,” Cassell said.

The School Bus Safety Co. launched the cooperative endeavor last month with the Public School Risk Institute, the National Association for Pupil Transportation (NAPT) and 247Security Inc. to provide the comprehensive training set at no charge to school districts nationwide.

The move was in response to a drastic increase in danger zone fatalities. Seventeen children were killed in school bus loading or unloading accidents in the 2008-09 school year, according to the Kansas State Department of Education’s national survey. The prior year, there were five fatalities — the lowest total on record.

The Danger Zones program, one of many titles in the School Bus Safety Co.’s Driver Training Course, features a 20-minute DVD, a trainer’s guide and a driver handout. It covers all aspects of how drivers should behave to prevent danger zone accidents.

To get a free copy, go to www.schoolbussafetyco.com. For more information, contact Janet Greer at jgreer@schoolbussafetyco.com.

MINOOKA  – School buses are known for transporting precious cargo as they take children to and from school.

One Minooka Community High School bus, however, was used to carry another type of precious cargo Friday, as it transported donated food to those in need.
The Stuff the Bus event was co-sponsored by the fourth grade Minooka Elementary School student council and their mentors, the MCHS student council.

“We’ve learned how to donate food to help the poor and needy,” Hannah Vanderkarr, fourth-grade student council member said. “They (The MCHS student council members) have taught us how to be respectful and responsible.”

The MES student council is a new program that teachers Lisa Hutto, Mary Beth Lid, and Lindsay Greenberg started as they work on their masters degree in education and leadership.

“We have over 60 kids involved,” Hutto said. “For the first year, we picked one grade; next year we hope to do more.”

They approached the high school council, hoping its members would take the time to mentor the grade-school students and teach them what it means to be a student council member.

“I love mentoring them, and teaching leadership skills,” said Victoria Regaldo, vice president of the MCHS Executive Board.

Luke Pesavento, sophomore representative, said he was surprised how mature the young students were.

“They are mature and they understand it is fun, but it takes work to get things done,” he said.
It was when the councils decided they wanted to get more involved with helping the community that the idea of Stuff the Bus was raised.

“There are people out there that need help,” Regaldo said. “I love helping other people.”

Once the idea was born, a chain reaction happened, spreading through both student councils and overlapping to the Minooka Police Department, which was one of the drop-off points for food.

The non-perishable food items were also collected at MCHS’s south and central campuses, as well as at Minooka Elementary School.

On Friday, the high school students loaded the bus at South Campus and set out on the trip, stopping at each drop off location and picking up food throughout the day. They had lunch with the grade-school students before traveling to Minooka Bible Church to unload the food they collected.

Regaldo and Pesavento agreed they’ve learned a lot from the food drive and how they can do it better in the future.

“We could do it at a different time of the year,” Pesavento said. “If we collected at indoor games, I think we could raise more food.”

Kyle Crowley, a fourth-grade student council member, thinks the most important thing they’ve learned from the high school students, however, is friendship, leadership, and caring.

Source http://www.morrisdailyherald.com/

Sometimes being a symbol of the American education system can backfire.

I few days ago, I read an article about a third-grader who had distributed to his classmates bags of heroin that were stamped with the words “Trust Me.” But this post is not about the frightening facts of the case but, rather, the imagery I discovered a day later when I found an updated article on the incident on CNN corespondent Anderson Cooper’s “360″ Web page.
The story included a photo of a row of school buses. At first, I thought maybe the student was passing out drugs on the school bus, or maybe he did it while he was waiting at the bus stop, or maybe a school bus driver noticed the activity and reported it — something that would deem the use of a image of school buses. But there was no such connection. The yellow buses were an easy out for the intrepid writer or editor who decided that a picture of school buses was good enough.

This is not the first time I’ve seen this. My only hope is that readers take the time to realize the misuse of the photo and have the same reaction I did.

When I first started at STN, founder Bill Paul would talk about how school buses evolved into a symbol for education. Around the turn of the century, it was the little red schoolhouse, then the apple became an overall educational icon. Now, within the last couple of decades, school buses have come to represent anything that has to do with K-12 education. It is an important role, one that people need to be more responsible with.

ITASCA, Ill. – Those needing proof that even hands-free cell phone conversations while driving are unsafe need to look no further than a white paper published last month by the National Safety Council.
“Understanding the Distracted Brain: Why driving while using hands-free cell phones is risky behavior” does not focus on school bus drivers but instead on all motorists. But the report was at least prompted in part by a January 2004 incident in which a motorist talking on a cell phone ran a red light and hit another car in the intersection, killing a 12-year-old boy in the process. The driver sped past four other cars and a school bus stopped at the red light, and the car the woman hit was about the third or fourth vehicle that entered the intersection on the green light.

Researchers have coined such a phenomenon “inattention blindness.” Dr. David L. Strayer of the University of Utah found in 2007 that drivers using cell phones fail to see up to 50 percent of what’s on the road. But most legislation targeting distracted driving only focus on texting or using hand-held communications devices.

In all, the white paper includes references to more than 30 scientific studies and reports, describing how using a cell phone, hands-free or handheld, requires the brain to multitask – a process it cannot do safely while driving. Cell phone use while driving not only impairs driving performance, but it also weakens the brain’s ability to capture driving cues.

Numerous public opinion surveys show most drivers believe using a cell phone while driving is dangerous. However, many admit they regularly talk or text while driving. Insurance industry studies have found that 80 percent of all crashes are caused by distracted driving, a staggering statistic when you consider that at least 650,000 people have died in traffic crashes since 1994.

Meanwhile, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 11 percent of all drivers are using cell phones. NSC estimates more than 1 out of every 4 motor vehicle crashes involves cell phone use at the time of the crash.

“Cell phone use while driving has become a serious public health threat,” said Janet Froetscher, NSC president and CEO. “This white paper provides the necessary background and context for lawmakers and employers considering distracted driving legislation and policies. Several states and municipalities have passed legislation allowing hands-free devices while driving. These laws give the false impression that hands-free phones are a safe alternative, when the evidence is clear they are not. Understanding the distraction of the brain will help people make the right decision and put down their cell phones while driving.”

Source http://stnonline.com/

PHELPS — A Midlakes bus driver was terminated after a 6-0 school board vote Wednesday, much to the dismay of a parent, colleague and four students who were there to voice their support.

At the board’s request, Superintendent Mike Ford played footage of a September traffic accident the driver was involved in. But signs held up by the four 11th-grade students said the driver — Patricia Dumas — drove safely and that the district would save $8,100 by using a new driver.

“It has nothing to do with money. None at all,” Ford said. “[Dumas had] two incidents in under a year, and they were both a driver error. I would be remiss in my duties, if we came back in a year with sirens, if we weren’t as lucky.”

Ford said Dumas drove through a stop sign, allowing a railroad crossing arm to land on the bus’s lights above her head.

A letter from Finger Lakes Railway indicated she was not at fault, however.

“We feel that the driver of this bus was taking the safe course by her actions and got caught in an unusual circumstance. We consider this as a non-incident,” said the letter signed by the railway’s general manager, S.C. Arnold.

Ford and the board acknowledged that the incident was first perceived as a malfunction on the railroad’s part, which a police investigation also supported.

But a re-creation and video of the incident showed that Dumas failed to stop, Ford said. That put a busload of children at risk, he said.

The footage came from a security camera inside the bus. The incident involved a railroad crossing gate on Church Street in the town of Phelps. Ford said the moving background seen through the windows, along with the odometer, showed the bus failed to stop at a stop sign.

The district’s investigation also found that three sets of flashing lights came on 30 seconds before the railroad crossing arm came down. Ford said the incident would not have occurred if the driver had made a complete stop and looked left and right.

Ford also cited a history of behavior and work-related issues with Dumas. Ford said she once flew by a student’s house, stopped, and then drove the bus in reverse into a vehicle.

Students, however, defended Dumas.

Several said they thought of Dumas like a mother because she’d been their bus driver as early as kindergarten. Prior to the meeting, they said they never felt safety was an issue.

“I just feel like the issues are serious charges that should be reconsidered and really looked at,” said Tina Fiori, a parent.

Fiori said there’s a big difference between people who get from point A to point B and people who do it safely as well as go above and beyond their job requirements.

Junior Tiffany Murray recalled how Dumas even put a sticker on the first step of the bus to make her smile.

“She wouldn’t let me get past it if I wasn’t in a good mood. And that happened a lot. So she always encouraged me, and helped me grow into the person I am today,” Murray said.

Ford suspended Dumas in December. He said she has the option for an independent arbitration hearing. She worked for the district for 19 years.

Dumas did not attend the school board meeting.

A state organization released statistics Thursday about an effort to cut down on the number of motorists who pass school buses illegally.

The Canandaigua School District was one of three districts across the state where cameras were put on school buses; those cameras can read license plate numbers.

The cameras captured 22 illegal passes over a 40-day period in the Canandaigua district.

The New York Association for Pupil Transportation said at least 50,000 cars illegally pass school buses daily in New York State.

The project was supported by a grant from the Governor’s Traffic Safety Committee and the National Highway Traffic Safety Committee.

http://rochester.ynn.com/all-news-news-2134-content/top_stories/485746/state-releases-figures-on-illegal-bus-passing

September 25, 2009, 8:00PM
Katy Batdorff | The Grand Rapids Press

MIDDLEVILLE — Francie Brummel and Lisa Snyder thought they had a perfect solution to getting their two kids on the Thornapple Kellogg school district bus.

But that solution has landed Snyder in hot water, and state Rep. Brian Calley, R-Portland, is trying to fast-track legislation to undo the mess.

Brummel drops her 7-year-old son off at Snyder’s nearby house on her way to work, where he waits for about an hour before the bus comes each morning. Another neighbor, Lori Forbes, brings her son and Mindy Rose’s son to Snyder’s home as well, then waits with all of them for the bus.

“We thought it was this awesome solution,” Brummel said. “Neither of our kids wanted to get on the bus by themselves.”

But after only three days of school, Snyder was notified by the state Department of Human Services that a neighbor had filed a complaint that she was operating an illegal day care out of her home.

“I’m not doing anything wrong, or anything a lot of other parents don’t do all over the country,” said Snyder, a stay-at-home mom.

The women are all friends who live near each other in a rural part of Barry County. Snyder’s home on Thornbird Drive is a designated bus stop, and the children would all ride the same bus anyway.

“Honestly, I don’t think you’ll meet a person with children who hasn’t broken this law,” said Snyder.

She said she got nowhere when she contacted the state to try and explain the situation and reaffirm that she does not take any money for helping out her neighbors.

According to state law, a person cannot provide care for unrelated children in their home for more than four weeks per calendar year unless they are licensed or registered with the state. Failure to do so is a misdemeanor punishable with fines or jail time.

Calley said the legislation he introduced this week would exempt families from state day care rules for what is essentially babysitting.

“My bill basically allows Michigan residents to be good neighbors,” he said, adding that the Middleville situation seems to be an “extreme case of government intrusion.”

Rose said it wouldn’t be practical to find or pay for day care for the few minutes each morning that her son is at Snyder’s house.

“I’m a single mom,” she said. “I have to work, and, honestly, I don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t bring my son here to get on the bus every morning. I know he’s safe. I’m not going to leave him home alone.”

“If she goes to jail, I should too,” said Forbes. “We all watch each other’s kids or friends’ kids. It’s really, really sad that friends and neighbors can’t help each other out without having the state get involved.”

E-mail the author of this story: localnews@grpress.com