FIRST TAKE One of the most recent incidents of school bus bullying to make national headlines, and there
have been a plethora over the past year, originates out of Jasper, Tenn., a small town located 25 miles west of Chattanooga and 100 miles southeast of Nashville. As reported by Te Associated Press, Christa Green received a phone call from school in late Sep-
The Issues, Questions Keep
Coming By Ryan Gray
tember that her deaf, 18-year-old son had been punched in the face…again. Mirroring an incident that occurred last fall in Florida, when James Jones stormed onto a Fla., school bus to confront stu- dents who had allegedly been bullying his daughter, Green stormed onto a Marion County (Tenn.) school bus to protect her son from yet another attack. She ignored the attempts of driver Stanley Cookston to get her to leave. Green was arrested and charged with 13 accounts of assault and one count of burglary despite
the fact that she did not harm the driver or any of the other students. Such is the price to pay for illegally accessing school property. Still, are schools doing everything they can to address bullying in the first place? Tis month, we report the results of a survey of transportation directors and supervisors that
included questions on bullying and training for drivers on how to respond to on-board incidents. After the fact, it dawned on me that we should have also asked a question about how operations train their drivers on what to do if a parent or other individuals try to gain access to the bus. Look for more on that in a coming issue. Last month, the NAPT Summit offered attendees additional information on how to thwart bullying on the bus. You can read more on the survey, which also included questions on seat belt usage, child re-
minder policies and distracted driving, on page 34. Meanwhile, this month new Associate Editor Sylvia Arroyo updates readers on the efforts of an
Arizona school district that has gone digital in its fleet of school buses with WiFi to help students take better advantage of long routes from an educational standpoint. Where the technology is affordable, increasingly school districts are at least considering how they can better incorporate the school bus ride into the educational day. Yet, I’m reminded of a conversation I had last spring with Dr. Edgar Hatrick, superintendent of Loudoun County (Va.) Public Schools, at the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) show in Denver. Hatrick, president of AASA at the time, said he was all for giving students activities on the bus that can discourage idle hands but questioned whether students don’t need some downtime instead. Still, as Arroyo reports, the Vail (Ariz.) School District that has installed WiFi routers in its buses says many students are able to complete their homework before even arriving home in the afternoon. Tis month, contributors John Ricks and Ned Einstein also tackle the controversial subjects of
fuel hedging and the safe crossing of students. Ricks, of the Te Cooperative Purchasing Network, asserts that these programs, designed to help save fleets, are often misunderstood. He sets out to offer a primer on how fuel hedging should work for school bus operators. Einstein concludes a seven-part series that takes a hard look at the many variances from state to state on how students cross the street either to or from the school bus stop. He asks some pointed, hard questions as to whether the industry is truly doing all it can to assure students don’t continue to be injured or killed in the loading and unloading zone or before/after the bus is on scene. As Peggy Burns of Education Compliance discussed during a workshop she presented this past summer at the STN EXPO, legal compliance does not begin and end with the bus ride. Finally, congratulations to this month’s cover boy Pete Meslin, school transportation news’
2011 Leadership Award winner, which he received last month at NAPT. If you don’t know Meslin, please introduce yourself starting on page 44. He’s one of the nicest, most intelligent, forward- thinking and business-minded people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting during my nearly 10-year career reporting on the student transportation industry. Paraphrasing the words of his superintendent at Newport-Mesa Unified School District in Or-
ange County, Calif., Meslin is an “extraordinary leader” who never fails to put the students first, just the way it ought to be done. ■
14 School Transportation News Magazine November 2011
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