The 35th Nevada School Bus Safety Road-eo takes place July 20 in Reno, Nev. See sidebar on page 68.
revised curriculum to teach the proper use and installation of child safety restraint systems on school buses, and a second, four-hour course covers emer- gency planning and accident response for school bus drivers. Te presenter for the emergency planning pre-con will be Bret Brooks, COO of training and consulting firm Gray Ram Tacti- cal LLC and formerly a captain in the Army, SWAT Sniper and state police officer. In kicking off the official first
day of the regular conference, Sunday’s activities will begin with the first general session, “Arrows in Your Quiver: Prac- tical Ideas to Empower You.” It will outline how to handle parental disputes with strategic thinking to help diffuse any potential litigation. Some noteworthy worshops
64 School Transportation News July 2013 See Us At Booth #137
for this day include the impli- cations on the Jan. 1, 2014, full implementation of the federal healthcare overhaul and the deadline for large employers, including school districts, to pro- vide healthcare benefits to their part-time employees who work 30 hours or more per week. One workshop will tackle the big issue of sleep apnea among school bus drivers. Dr. Brian Lucia of the Sierra Pulmonary and Sleep Institute in Reno will present during this workshop, which will be moderated by Max Christensen, NASDPTS president and the state director of student transportation at the Iowa Department of Education. Christensen has sat in meetings with FMCSA representatives and discussed pending regulations.
While this problem needs a
solution, there is debate over whose responsibility it is to test drivers for sleep disorders, and then to treat them. Lucia said about 15 percent of the general male population suffers from sleep apnea, while about 5 percent of women are affected. Tere is a definite correlation of sleep apnea to obesity, he added. According to Lucia, about 28
percent of short-haul truckers, a sector that can include school bus drivers, suffer from sleep apnea. Tat rate rises to four in 10 for long-haul truckers. Lucia also pointed out that
it’s against the law in five states to drive while drowsy, a point he’ll hammer home during the workshop on July 21. Two others will supplement
the conversation. Charley Ken- nington, a former state director himself and the man Chris- tensen replaced as NASDPTS president-elect four years ago when he retired from the Texas Department of Public Safety, and Ralph Knight, director of transportation for Napa Valley Unified, located north of San Francisco. Kennington regularly fields questions about drowsy bus drivers as director of Innovative Transportation Solutions, the student transportation consultant and training arm of Education Services Center Region IV, while Night said sleep apnea is a high-priority when evaluating his driver corps. Monday’s agenda begins with
the second general session, “Se- crets from the Nation’s Largest District Transportation Depart- ments,” which will delve into
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