44 School Transportation News Magazine September 2011
School Transportation Security Retrospective TSA leader recounts how school buses came under the purview of the federal terrorism and crime watch post-9/11
By William Arrington Recognizing that the nation
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faced a relentless evil became the driving force for virtually every public policy enacted or consid- ered following the tragic events of 9/11. Te first decision was to close America’s historic open door. Within weeks of 9/11, the first of thousands of new hires would
be recruited to stand watch over America’s airways, but the agency’s mission wasn’t limited to aviation. Congress authorized TSA to close the gaps in all modes of transpor- tation. As it was created, TSA was aviation centric yet focused also on surface transportation: mari- time, mass transit, rail, pipeline and
highway. All of those surface modes were originally configured along business lines: cargo, infrastructure and passengers. Fewer than a dozen were assigned to highway security issues, and three were responsible for highway passenger security. Te statisticians reported that nearly half a million school buses
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are on the road every morning and after- noon. Tey also told us nearly 23 million students rely on school buses every school day, but they didn’t have to tell us one thing we already knew — every one of those stu- dents is entrusted to bus drivers and the vehicle itself by parents who expect their student to be kept safe from harm. Other federal agencies, likes NHTSA,
had figured out how to make the school bus safe from violent-accident intrusions with strong construction and operational rules. TSA now had to figure out how to prevent the most elusive and insidious vio- lent intrusion, one that could simply walk in through the open door and deliberately deliver death in 100 different ways. TSA’s job today remains the same as it
was in 2001, but happily, those original TSA new hires found solid support and help from some of the most dedicated school transportation experts
in Tree professional organizations
the country. imme-
diately offered knowledge and guidance: NAPT, NASDPTS and NSTA. Te volun- teers who serve as directors and members of those organizations stepped forward with their time, their knowledge and their influence to help TSA understand the business of school transportation and the challenges they face every day. Similarly, some of the sharpest and most
experienced private-sector security spe- cialists have opened their doors and their policy documents to TSA and to their less security savvy colleagues. While virtually all school bus operators have had “securi- ty” on their plates for a very long time, few had policies in place that would address the kind of terrorism America endured on 9/11. Existing security policies, we all dis- covered together, needed re-thinking. Working with sharply restricted re-
sources and an admittedly shallow knowledge of existing security practices, TSA invested its early efforts in trying to understand what the school trans- portation industry was already doing for its own security. We found — not unexpectedly — a broad range of poli- cies based primarily on each system’s anticipated types and levels of threats. Tey ranged from urban gang wars to disgruntled students and parents. No- where, however, did TSA find a system that was prepared for an incident of in- ternational terrorism. Using one of the first tools in our TSA
Highway Security toolbox, the “corporate security review (CSR),” headquarters staff visited districts around the country to
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