FIRST TAKE It’s EXPO Time Again WRITTEN BY RYAN GRAY
EXPO, which runs July 20-24 in Reno, Nev. Te STN EXPO provides student transporters nationwide and beyond the opportunity to network, learn and share, all while also having fun. Tis year promises to be an especially exciting affair as we celebrate the 20th anniversary. Tis month, a large section of the magazine provides more detail on the networking
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events, the four dozen workshops planned and our engaging, thought-provoking general sessions. We'll have a roundtable discussion with representatives of two of the nation’s larg- est school systems and a keynote presentation by Mo Canady, the executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers. He will discuss school security and the role that transportation departments play. Our featured keynote, sponsored by Blue Bird Corporation, is Yul Kwon, a former winner
of the reality television show “Survivor.” More importantly, he is a former law clerk and legisla- tive aid as well as a successful attorney and businessman who says he owes much of his aca- demic and professional success to lessons learned on the school bus. As we previewed in our May edition, Kwon hosted the PBS mini-series “America Revealed” last spring, which featured a segment on school busing as a vital mode of our national transportation infrastructure. One of my major objectives in developing the curriculum each year is to push attendees to the limit in their thought processes; to perhaps open their eyes to a new and better way of tackling their day-to-day jobs. I have picked up more than a few ideas regarding transporta- tion operations in my decade of writing for this magazine, but a student transportation expert I certainly am not. But with the help of my editorial advisors and expert conference co-chairs, such as Frank Giordano of Clark County School District in Las Vegas, the STN EXPO has been a success in bringing challenging topics and conversations to the forefront. Just last year we brought in Shmuel Bollen, a user-interface expert from Boston to give a
presentation on the illogical nature of competing school bus safety messages on the vehicles themselves, as lettering can vary state by state, sometimes even county by county or town by town. Tat presentation led to him speaking to members of NASDPTS last fall, and both speaking engagements generated much interest among National Congress on School Trans- portation steering committee members in bringing to the floor a potential proposal in 2015. Tis year, we again offer a slew of topics we hope will tantalize attendees. One is a general
session during which leaders from two of the largest school districts in the nation will share insights into how they make decisions regarding technology, staffing and more for transpor- tation. All regular conference attendees, guests and trade-show exhibitors are welcome to attend this general session the morning of July 22. Tere will certainly be some eye-opening answers and unique perspectives shared during by Enrique Boull’t, chief operating officer for Los Angeles Unified, and by EXPO co-chair Giordano. Later that same day, a breakout workshop will also discuss the unique challenges presented to
rural transporters. A survey of STN readers conducted two years ago found that nearly 60 per- cent of respondents said they work in a “rural” area of the country. Tis statistic is similar to the 55 percent of superintendent-members of the American Association of School Administrators who answered a survey earlier this year and said they, too, hailed from rural school districts. Tese are but a few examples of the ideas that lay a head for those of you coming to Reno this month. We hope you will join us.
ith summer now firmly upon us all, thoughts quickly turn from recol- lections of the past school year to preparations necessary for a successful new school year. Tis time of year is all about training and ramping up operations.
It’s also time to think about that annual rite of passage, the North American School Bus
12 School Transportation News July 2013
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