and delayed hiring, but we can do it even though it will cause some emotional pain.” In a separate session, Linda Bluth,
past-president of NAPT and a quality assurance and monitoring specialist with the Maryland Department of Education, told attendees that school districts are ripe for compliance violations due to the unique nature of the services performed. During a general session, Peggy Burns,
president of Education Compliance Group, and Pete Meslin, transportation director for the Newport-Mesa Unified School District in Southern California, said policy, training and information flow are keys to reduc- ing the inherent liability risks associated with transporting special needs students. Tey said specific written policies, training programs and providing drivers with the information they need would reduce liability exposure by compensating for the vagueness of federal law and the potential inadequa- cies of state-provided training.
Keynote & Trade Show
Yul Kwon is an ttorney, former legislative aid and television personality – even if he fell into the latter. Tat's what the winner of the CBS reality television show "Survivor: Cook Islands" and the host of last year's PBS docu-series "America Revealed" shared with EXPO attendees during his keynote address sponsored by Blue Bird Corporation and Allison Transmission. Kwon talked about how, as a young boy,
a school bus driver postively influenced his life. Kwon, a first generation Korean-Amer- ican, was a victim of bullying on the bus, incidents that seemingly were ignored by another driver. But when "Mr. John" took over the route, the bullying ended. He also shared with Kwon ideals on how the boy should conduct himself. Despite suffering from social anxiety for the next decade or so, Kwon lived those les- sons and made the decision to be a positive role model for other Asian Americans, cu- liminating in his appearance on "Survivor." Or so he thought. Kwon was tabbed by PBS to help share the importance of that nation's infrastructure, including school busing, in an entertaining yet informative way. Te next day, July 23, the STN EXPO
“If you don’t have written policies, excuses
won’t work,” Meslin said. “We didn’t get into this business to write, but you must have written policies. Ten you train and re- train on those policies. Get the information (on students) that you need. If you don’t have that data, you can’t serve the student effectively.” Burns added that there is more risk in
not sharing information but that training is necessary to ensure that a student’s privacy is not compromised. “Problems occur when things fall through
the cracks,” she said. “Te problem with the (federal) law is it does not say who does what.”
Trade Show opened with more than 100 exhibitors displaying products and ser- vices. Blue Bird unveiled its new 98-gallon propane fuel tank, the largest available in the industry. Seon launched its new vMax Trac that uses an RFID-card system for on-board student tracking that works with the company's video surveillance solutions. KidTrack showed a new palm reader that scans a student's vein structure to verify identity on the bus. Unity School Bus Parts displayed its
new Guardian Angel, a lighting system to increase safety at bus stops. Two red, flashing lights wired in conjunction with the eight-way lights are mounted on the hood, and a 1000 lumen LED work light shines inacross the road in front of the bus to increases visibility of students. 247 Security, meanwhile, pushed its new bulletproof Zeus DVR that offers 30-30 vision technology, the best available on the market, according to the company. See our products pages in this issue with
more from the show. — Art Gissendaner contributed to this report.
60 School Transportation News September 2013
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