HEADLINES
Annual Southeastern States Conference Highlights Training Needs in Tough Economic Climate
By Ryan Gray According to the American Legislative Exchange Council,
Mississippi ranks near the bottom of national educational perfor- mance, No. 48 to be exact. Not helping matters is that Mississippi, like many other states, has been forced to make education bud- get cuts that also affect student transportation services. Tis made the location of the 62nd Southeastern States Pupil
Transportation Conference vital to the continuing education of Mississippi student transporters. SESPTC was held in Biloxi, Miss., July 7-11 in conjunction with the Mississippi A, ssociation for Pu- pil Transportation. “Tey have been unable to have a conference for their di-
rectors and supervisors in quite some time,” explained Derek Graham, the state director of transportation at the North Caro- lina Office of Public Instruction and immediate past-president of the SESPTC Executive Committee. He noted that a quarter of the SESPTC attendees were from in-state. “State-wide training right now is for technicians only.” Charlie Hood, director of student transportation at the Florida
Department of Education and a conference presenter, added: “For several of the states, this is the one affordable opportunity each year to receive the staff development that is critical to their ability to lead their state and local operations effectively.” Te event officially kicked off July 8 with an opening golf
tournament, registration and the course “Overseeing a Fleet Management Program,” part of the NAPT Professional Devel- opment Series. Following a state director’s meeting and a pool party hosted that evening by Tomas Built Buses, Sunday saw the start of the conference curriculum. A highlight was a presentation by Barbara Czech, deputy direc-
tor of investigations for the National Transportation Safety Board’s Office of Highway Safety, on the Aug. 5, 2010, Gray Summit (Mo.) school bus crash. Te final report was released early this year. Graham said most of the attendees had yet to read the ac-
cident investigation, which concluded that cellphone texting by the 19-year-old driver of a pickup truck caused the chain-reaction crash on Interstate 44. Te crash also included a tractor-trailer and two school buses carrying high school band members to a competition at Six Flags St. Louis. Contributing to the crash was inadequate following distance of two school bus drivers. Te pickup truck slammed into the rear of the tractor trailer
that had slowed in a construction zone. Te lead school bus then hit the pickup, forcing it on the back of the tractor-trailer, and the following school bus then struck the right-rear corner of the first school bus. Te collisions killed the pickup driver and a 16-year- old band member sitting in the rear of the first school bus.
26 School Transportation News Magazine September 2012 “(Te attendees) had the benefit of going through the case and
findings in an organized fashion,” Graham said. “It’s not so much the rocket science of the findings but that it impressed the need to step up my efforts (so) that my constituents (in North Carolina) know the facts of the case, providing something to local directors that they can use in their back-to-school training of drivers.” Ben Shew, state director at the West Virginia Department of Ed-
ucation and the Southeast region director for NASDPTS, called the presentation “excellent.” Shew later in the week showed a video created by AAA Carolina’s Foundation for Traffic Safety. In it, Pre- sley Melton of Rock Hill, S.C., the survivor of a distracted-driving crash, says more than 2,600 people have died as a result of texting- related crashes. She adds that texting while driving is more deadly than driving while intoxicated. Shew showed a public service vid- eo,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqBlL4Wujkw, created by the South Carolinas Broadcaster’s Association that depicts a crash as a result of a teen texting while behind the wheel. Mike Simmons, Arkansas’ state director and the current presi-
dent of NASDPTS, presented results from the 2nd National Stop Arm Count, which found that 77,876 vehicles illegally passed school buses during 39,616 incidents that were recorded by about 100,000 school bus drivers on a given day. Te illegal passing counts were performed from March 1 through May 31. Twenty-six states participated in the count, two fewer than a year ago. Joining Simmons were Graham, Shew and Terry Graham, director
of transportation for Jones County (Miss.) Schools. Tey discussed best practices for enforcing local stop-arm violations and how states
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