TSD Conference Tackles Questions, Complexities and Clarifications
WRITTEN BY ROSEANN SCHWADERER
federal spending cuts imposed by seques- tration. While the short- and long-term impacts on transportation service delivery to students with special needs and children enrolled in Head Start programs remain difficult to document, this much is known, according to student transportation officials contacted by STN. Sequestration cut more than $600
T
million for U.S. Department of Education special education programs, and closed doors to many children enrolled in Head Start programs. Congressional moves made over the past couple of months have essen- tially replaced much of the lost funding, but state and local cuts have added to the pressure of operating transportation services more efficiently (with fewer staff and dollars for training, longer bus rides, more stress on compliance requirements, and extended timeframes for vehicle replacement). All in all, this translates to a more
pressing need for transportation providers to be adept in communicating with parents who are disgruntled about changes that are affecting services and, of course, to become even better at their daily jobs of transport- ing students with disabilities and preschool- ers. Te national TSD Conference plays a vital role in opening the door to solutions to those day-to-day, regulation-to-operation, and dollar-short challenges facing special needs transportation professionals and Head Start transportation providers as well as ensuring the safety of the students. For attendees at this year’s TSD Confer-
ence, Dr. Linda F. Bluth of the Maryland Deptartment of Education will ask the vital question, "Are Your Eyes Open to Sexual Abuse?" Did you know that students with disabilities are nearly three times as likely to be preyed upon than their regular education peers? Many factors, she will discuss, contrib-
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he U.S. Congress approved a two-year federal budget in December, putting an end to most of the across-the-board
ute to this vulenerability, including age and type of disability. Make sure your operations protects your students as well as its liability.
‘GOLD STANDARD’ SESSIONS WITH EXPERTS
As the former owner of the national TSD
Conference, and Publisher of Legal Routes, I often receive inquiries related to service delivery and operations practices from spe- cial needs transportation professionals and from concerned parents. For answers, I rely on the expert responses of Bluth, and other members of the TSD Conference tenured faculty … answers and solutions attendees will learn during conference sessions, while networking on the trade show floor. Here is a recent question I received from
a parent: “My child is a junior in high school and has Down syndrome. Te bus has always picked him up (at a stop) on the safety side — the same side of the street as our house. Now, the bus stops on the other side of the street. He always met the bus on the safety side, and I’m afraid about this change. I called the
The 23rd TSD Conference makes its home this year at Nashville's famed Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center, where attendees will learn hands-on skills to make them even better student transporters.
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