INDUSTRY CONNECTIONS


Can 5 Minutes Really Save You Hundreds of Dollars on Your Transportation Costs?


Most definitely, according to Joseph Nee, the shop foreman for Queen Creek Unified School District in Arizona. Nee was presented recently with an air compressor that was profusely leaking oil where it links with the hydraulic pump on a 1999 Tomas Built Buses RE with a Caterpillar 3126 engine. Research was getting him nowhere, so he decided to turn to STNSOCiAL, www.stnsocial.com, the new online networking portal developed by School Transportation News exclusively for the pupil transporta- tion community.


Nee reached out to Ralph Knight, transportation director for Napa Valley Unified School District north of San Fran- cisco. Nee explained to Knight that he had purchased a gasket that only fit on one side, and oil was continuing to flow where the quad ring is located. Nee asked if the entire air compressor needed to be replaced or if he just needed to replace the rubber


quad ring. Knight said his technicians recommended to first replace the ring on the quad side. “I received the answer I was seeking in less than 5 minutes, and it saved the dis-


trict hundreds of dollars, the cost of a new compressor,” said Nee. “Mechanics cannot know everything, and it sure helps to have a place to turn for advice.”


Serving Special Needs Te National Association


for Pupil Transportation pre- sented Roseann Schwaderer with a plaque commemorat- ing 20 years of the Transporting Students with Disabilities and Preschoolers National Con- ference and Exhibition. NAPT President Linda Bluth made the presentation to Schwa- derer, owner of Edupro Group, following a bullying and ha-


rassment general session on March 14 in Kansas City, Mo. “I have been extremely fortunate to have worked with the


people I have worked with over the years on the conference,” Schwaderer said. “Each of them brings a unique set of skills to talking about those topics and passing along best-practice concepts and then making themselves available throughout the year, throughout the years, for people who just want to call them and talk about their problems and issues.” She said her biggest thrill is that her show, commonly re-


ferred to in the industry as TSD, has become a type of family gathering of special education professionals, which can be difficult to achieve because so many brand-new attendees


16 School Transportation News Magazine May 2011


come each year. Schwaderer was especially impressed by the large number of first-time attendees in Kansas City. “Tose new people came with such a sense of energy,” she


added. “Many presenters told me they had more active par- ticipation in their sessions than they have had in past years.” Tis year’s event featured more than 35 sessions, seven


pre-conference workshops including courses on the basics of special needs transportation, bus evacuations and wheelchair securements. Te conference also featured the Child Passen- ger Safety Restraints on School Buses seminar approved by NHTSA, and special day-long workshops on managing risks of cyber-age technologies and pre-school and Head Start op- erations. Te 2012 show is scheduled to return to Orlando, Fla., March 9-14. Schwaderer’s initial TSD conference was in Dallas in 1992.


A journalist by trade, and the first woman to serve as a chief editor for McGraw-Hill’s publications division, she started the event after reporting for the School Transportation Di- rector newsletter and seeing the need for more curriculum devoted to special needs and preschooler transportation is- sues. An attendee stood up during a closing general session and suggested Schwaderer make the event a yearly thing. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, I have to do this again?’” she re- called. “I was scared out of my mind. I still am.”


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