HEADLINES
Sexual Predator Training Continues to Educate Drivers, Transportation Staff on National Scale
While his introduction to the school
bus industry began at the NASDPTS conference in 2007 and continued at the 2008 and 2009 STN EXPO conferences, Dr. Duane Dobbert has spent numerous hours relaying his message to every state that he has visited — it is everyone’s job to protect the nation’s children. Te school bus industry is an expert on
child safety, which explains why Dr. Dob- bert’s training, School Bus Drivers: Te First Line of Defense Against Sexual Preda- tors, has become a popular addition the state pupil transportation conference circuit. “Training is just starting to be scheduled
for fall,” said Dr. Dobbert from his office at Florida Gulf Coast University, where he is the graduate program director for the university’s Forensic Studies program. “I am committed to Okeechobee County, Fla., for all the education systems, law enforcement, mental health, and so on. I am also in the process the scheduling of an initiative in a major Metropolitan area.”
Dr. Dobbert explained that he is at-
tempting to build a state-of-the-art Child Abduction Response Team for the as yet unnamed city, which will include training all of the related agencies. For districts that are finding it difficult
to fund this type of training, Dr. Dob- bert pointed to an promising example in Indiana, where some districts were able to find someone else to foot the bill. Af- ter setting up a training session for five school districts in the southern part of the state, Dr. Dobbert learned it was be- ing funded by the insurance carrier for the school districts. “Other districts are working on do-
ing the same thing. It is their belief, and I concur, that if the training is available and a district fails to train, and a child is ab- ducted from a bus stop, the liability will be enormous,” explained Dr. Dobbert. But, he reminded, the training does
not begin and end with his course. He now has a little help to spread the mes- sage. So far, he has certified more than 150
trainers that can not only conduct train- ing for pupil transportation departments but for numerous other audiences as well, including teachers, child welfare workers, parents and recreation staff. “There was so much demand for my
training that it was impossible to do, therefore I constructed this training cur- riculum and certification process,” said Dr. Dobbert. “Many of my university graduates are getting employed because of their additional knowledge about sex- ual predators.” Even with his work as a professor and
time spent training, Dr. Dobbert has been able to find time to write another book as well. Te book, Child Predators: What Every Parent Must Know, is a non-clinical and practical version of his earlier book, Halting the Sexual Predators Among Us. “It is written for the mass paperback
market and discusses what every parent must know and what to do in all types of situations, proactively, and in reaction,” said Dr. Dobbert. ■
Districts Continue to be Affected by Gulf Oil Spill A little more than a year ago BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig ex-
ploded and caused millions of gallons of oil to spill into the Gulf of Mexico, an ecological catastrophe that also affected 600,000 chil- dren and families in close to three dozen school districts in Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida and Alabama. It’s repercussions are still being felt today, even by districts not physically affected by the clean up. “We were affected economically in that the costs for items de-
pendent on the gulf for production became more expensive,” said Charles E. Sellers, bus route supervisor for Calcasieu Parish Sschool System in Lake Charles, La. “Fuel costs have increased by at least a dollar a gallon or more for gasoline, diesel, and so on. Food cost as well as commodities necessary to support students in school or in transit to and from school has increased because transportation costs have increased.” Te costs can multiply in a time when budgets are seeing even greater cuts for the upcoming school year. In Alabama, the level of
funding is currently down 25 to 30 percent, according to State Direc- tor Joe Lightsey at the Department of Education. “A lot of it was tied in with the issue with the oil spill in the
Gulf,” explained Lightsey. To combat some of the financial backlash from the spill,
many districts are researching options to bring suit against BP. Although Lee County Public School in Fort Meyer, Fla., has yet to officially file suit against the oil company, district lawyers in- formed the school board that it would be in its best interest to at least file the paperwork allowing for the option to sue at a later date. Other districts already filed the necessary paperwork by the April deadline. In the face of these odds, Calcasieu Parish’s Sellers said his dis-
trict will continue to transport, educate and counsel its students, no matter what the future brings. “But we might have to do it on a bicycle,” he joked. ■
24 School Transportation News Magazine June 2011
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