STN ONLINE
EARLY BIRD GETS THE DISCOUNT
March 2014 may seem like a long time for the 23rd annual Transporting Students with Disabilities (TSD) and Preschoolers National Conference, but already online early-bird registration for the conference opens this month at
www.tsdconference.com. Those who register now will save $150 from the standard registration fee. To be held Feb. 28 to March 5 at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center in Nashville, the TSD Conference offers the “meat and potatoes” of training and resources for transporters of students with special needs, preschoolers and Head Start chil- dren. The 2014 conference also will include the 17th annual National Special Needs Team Safety Road- eo, which will take place on the Gaylord Opryland grounds instead of at the host city’s school district. While at the TSD Conference website, be sure to click on the Schedule at a Glance link on the right- hand side of the home page to learn more about some of the three-dozen educational sessions and work- shops to be offered during the six-day conference.
WEB POLL: HAVE YOU ANALYZED YOUR WORKFORCE?
If you’re still learning about the new Obamacare healthcare benefits mandate to part-time workers who work 30 or more hours, you’re in luck. Te original Jan. 1, 2014, deadline was delayed one year to give businesses in all industries, including school districts, time to better prepare for the change. Our STN EXPO this year held a session about this topic, and
presenters urged transportation directors to use the additional year to calmly and effectively analyze their workforce in order to retain drivers and services. Visit
www.stnonline.com/go/2y for more information about the session. In the meantime, we’d like to hear from you about this topic. Visit
our home page to take our latest Web Poll on whether or not your district or company is reclassifying full-time drivers and other staff to part-time to avoid increased costs of benefits tied to this new mandate.
WEB EXCLUSIVES: CLOUD-BASED OPERATIONS IN TEXAS, PUPIL TRANSPORTATION AT SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA SCHOOL DISTRICT
Left: Josh Rice of New Caney (Texas) ISD uses an iPad to show a colleague an evaluation form that was created by an app and is stored in the cloud. Right: Long Beach Unified’s Susan Perkins in front of one of the district’s Crown buses.
Tis month’s issue looks at how technology is affecting student
transporters workload and how it is helping the entire transpor- tation department. One of our Web Exclusives for this month expands upon the integration of technology into transportation by featuring New Caney Independent School District in Texas, about 30 miles north of downtown Houston. Last school year, the district’s director of transportation, Josh
Rice, implemented iPad technology throughout the department, and now all documents and files are stored in the cloud. And that’s
12 School Transportation News September 2013
just the beginning for this early adopting department. Our second Web Exclusive looks back at the 2012-2013 school
year at Long Beach (Calif.) Unified School District, which still runs some of those infamous Crown buses in its yellow bus fleet. STN spoke with Susan Perkins, assistant director of transportation, about the changes in transportation throughout the past school year, and changes for the new school year tied to budget cuts. Visit
www.stnonline.com/home/web-exclusive to read both stories.
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