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AMERICAN BUS ASSOCIATION STUDY EYES MOTORCOACH
TOURISM Did you know that student
Seon Employees Don Pink T-Shirts to Protest Against Bullying Employees at mobile surveillance
A blog post by Tia O’Grady, Seon’s
system manufacturer Seon Design took part in “Pink Shirt Day” celebrated across Canada in late February. Te event raises awareness about the bullying problem in schools, at home and on the Internet. Talk radio station CKNW AM 980 in
Vancouver, British Columbia, launched Pink Shirt Day after a news article reported that two high-school boys from Nova Scotia, David Shepherd and Travis Price, coordinated a response to protest the bullying of another boy targeted because he wore a pink shirt. Te student organizers distributed 50 pink tank tops to male classmates to wear in protest. CKNW then partnered with the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Vancouver to promote Pink Shirt Day citywide.
marketing coordinator, describes how anxious she felt when she rode the school bus as a child because one boy was teased and physically abused almost daily. “He got off at the same bus stop as I
did,” O’Grady wrote. “Te quiet tears I saw rolling down his cheeks made me feel helpless. No one deserves that kind of treatment, and nothing was done to stop it.” O’Grady tied the anti-bullying campaign into the well-publicized stories of bus monitor Karen Klein who was bullied by students, and 15-year-old Amanda Todd who committed suicide after being bullied. According to the National Education Association, 160,000 U.S. students miss school every day due to the fear of attack or intimidation by other children.
FTA TARGETS ILLEGAL SCHOOL BUS
OPERATION IN SOUTH DAKOTA An FTA regional administrator ordered Yankton Transit to cease and desist from
operating exclusive school-bus service in violation of federal law. Transit authorities that receive federal funds are prohibited from competing with
private school-bus contractor companies. Transit agencies that receive FTA funds are not allowed to provide schedules that are not designed to serve only school-age students and are otherwise not open to the general public, unless a private school bus operation cannot provide adequate service. With the recent ruling, FTA agreed with the complaint submitted Feb. 24, 2011, by
NSTA and alleged that Yankton Transit, a sub-recipient of the South Dakota DOT, is operating such an illegal service and submitted as proof photos of a non-student rider being denied access to a bus, a bus parked in front of Sacred Heart School and another bus unloading students at St. Benedict’s Elementary School. In its cease and desist decree, FTA ordered the agency to provide a transition plan for the
remainder of this school year and next school school year “to accommodate service through the end of the school year” within 60 days of the Feb. 7 decision.
28 School Transportation News April 2013
motorcoach tourism is a $31-bil- lion-a-year industry? According to a new study by the American Bus Association Foundation, student tourism in the United States represents 30 percent of all motorcoach tourism, with 89.4 million passenger trips annually. The economic impact analysis
released in February shows that student motorcoach travel supports 302,300 jobs in the U.S., including 36,570 jobs in the motorcoach industry. The report for the ABA
Foundation, conducted by John Dunham & Associates, defines a student tour as a planned trip by a school for field trips, tours and team transportation of children ages 18 and younger. Passenger trip tourism estimations include charter, tour and sightseeing operations but exclude scheduled service and commuter operations. ABA Foundation survey data claims that student tourism by motorcoach is one of the most cost-effective ways for school- children to visit key historical and cultural sites that may have other- wise been out of reach. According to data from nearly 500 mo- torcoach and tour operating com- panies, student tours purchased for a group travel experience were discounted 25 percent on average, when compared to retail tour prices. Also in February, Dan Drexler, the Minnesota division admin- istrator for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, advised Minnesota student transporters on how to check a motorcoach company's safety performance scores.
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