• NAPT RECAP Leading a New Charge


NAPT’s ‘Leading Every Day’ participants receive hands-on experience during annual meeting As part of NAPT’s Leading Every Day program at this year’s


Summit in Portland, Ore., President-Elect Alexandra Robinson utilized her experience with the Council of Great City Schools and modified an exercise for use last fall by NAPT’s Leading Every Day, or LED, peer review team. It was a study on how well one lo- cal school district runs its transportation department. “It was our hope that by seeing how much could be accom-


plished, our “LED-heads,” especially those who have been involved for all five years, in such a short amount of time, would be more likely to attempt the same brainstorming and change-manage- ment scenario back in their own operation,” said Robinson. Te new addition to the LED program is a way to bring theory


into practice by working with Beaverton Public Schools (BPS) to affect an upcoming bell change. LED members were initially divided into four groups, with each looking at a specific issue


view, so that definitely was a learning experience for them,” said Marisa Weisinger, a technical training specialist at Innovative Transportation Solutions in Houston. “For many, just to have the opportunity to visit a district other than their own was very enlightening. Working as a team on an actual, real, worthwhile project was a great experience as well, especially with the time constraints we had.” But the bell change wasn’t the only reason BPS Transportation


Director Jane Langlois agreed to the study. “We had a beautiful new facility that we were anxious to show


The Art of Listening…and Responding West Virginia school bus driver recognized at NAPT for initiative taken to curtail student bullying


By Ryan Gray Chancellor Coger just wanted every-


one to know that kids just want to be taken seriously when they tell adults, principals, teachers and school bus driv- ers about bullies. Te fifth grader from Monongalia Coun-


ty Schools near Morgantown, W.Va., was on hand at the NAPT Summit in Portland, Ore., to talk about his experiences as one of the bullied during a presentation at the Oregon Convention Center on Oct. 31. NAPT brought Chancellor and his moth- er to participate on a bullying panel, that also included Kevin Jennings, an assistant administrator at the U.S. Department of Education, and James Jones, the Florida father who was arrested in September for illegally boarding his daughter’s school bus. Jones became irate after learning that


some boys on the school bus had alleg- edly been harassing his daughter, who also has cerebral palsy. Te incident lead to ad-


ditional national media attention on the subject of school bullying, and it resulted in much controversy within the pupil transportation industry itself. It was estimated that at least a third


of the NAPT attendees boycotted the afternoon general session, likely because they disagreed with extending Jones’ 15 minutes of fame. By boarding the bus and threatening the students and driver, Jones was found guilty of disorderly conduct and disrupting a school function. He faced a $1,000 fine and six months of probation. Meanwhile, in early October, Tomas


Built Buses announced that an essay writ- ten by Coger the year before resulted in the company’s fifth-annual Children’s Choice School Bus Driver of the Year Award being given to Lester LeMasters, a seven-year veteran at Monongalia County Schools in Morgantown, W.Va. Ten a fourth-grader, Coger penned his winning


42 School Transportation News Magazine January 2011


submission during the 2009-2010 school year. It recalled how his bus driver, LeMas- ters, helped, in Chancellor’s words, to save his life by ending the constant bullying at the hands of a classmate. On and off for three years Coger said he


had complained to the school principal about the name calling, pushing and even punches to the stomach. But behavior con- tinued. According to Coger, his previous school bus driver also apparently did not see or had not paid attention to the allegations. Coger’s mother, Andrea, was at her wits end. “He really didn’t want to ride the bus


on his way home, so many times he asked me to come get him,” she said. “I was des- perate. I told Lester, ‘just do something. I don’t care what you have to do.’” At the time, the driver was in his sixth


year at Monongalia and had recently tak- en over Coger’s elementary school route. Bullying was nothing new to LeMasters,


to discuss and study. It culminated with a presentation of rec- ommendations to the district. Te groups focused on public relations, policies and parameters, cost and budgeting issues, and bell times and options for their implementation. “Most in the group had never performed a management re-


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60