With state budgets, and those of individual w
school districts, historically lagging at least 12 months behind the rest of the economy, times have been very tough for the education com- munity and for pupil transporters and the companies that serve them. Te editors of School Transportation News looked back over the past year to identify the most polarizing events, and the list we compiled ran very long. From the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act stimulus to H1N1 to use of seclusion and restraints in schools (and, hence, school buses), it was a mighty busy year. So much so, that we identified more than two dozen candidates. But in the end, we were able to whittle down the final list a little more. Surely some news didn’t make the cut, and we’d love to hear from you, our readers, on your thoughts as to what you thought were the biggest magazine and online news items during the 2009-2010 school year.
The Economy, the Stimulus and a Contracting Industry And no, we’re not talking about contracted
school bus service. Tough, to a certain extent, that is one way school districts hurting under immense financial pressures are responding to budget cuts. Tough the nation is theoreti- cally out of the recession, things still feel very tight for the majority of Americans, especially the 10 percent (or more) who are still unem- ployed. And, in turn, school budgets continue to be pinched to near oblivion. Home foreclo- sures are still on the rise, meaning
that property taxes continue to plummet. Te industry has done an amiable job of a high-wire balance over the past year in rolling with a flurry of punches thrown in the form of major route reductions, transportation staff and driver job cuts, extending school bus life cycles, cutting field trips, etc. In May, the American Associa- tion of School Administrators reported survey results that showed further transportation job cuts are expected in the coming school year. Last year’s American Recovery and Rein-
vestment Act provided schools with some temporary relief in the form of diesel emissions reduction grants and an infusion of dollars for special needs programs, Head Start, Title I and hiring staff members, but the federal money merely plugged holes for the time being. Tose funds are now exhausted. And the pain is be- ing passed along to the companies that provide products and services to the industry. Te school bus manufacturers reported in the 2010 STN Buyer’s Guide that vehicle production fell to anemic levels of less than 40,000 units for the first time in 15 years. And the forecast for the current manufacturing year was for only 28,000 school buses.
Student Restraint and Seclusion Amid all of the other challenges of this past year,
the Department of Education took on a big proj- ect in trying to determine how schools address child behavior in classrooms — and as an exten- sion of the classroom, school buses. Restraint and seclusion of students, especially those with severe behavior modifications enrolled in special education programs, has been a part of many schools’ standard operat- ing procedures for years. But, as uncovered by a Government Accountability Office
study in May of last year, hundreds of cases of abuse have been discovered. Tis includes onboard the school bus and off it by bus driv- ers and attendants. While policy must be strictly defined as to how student behavior is to be handled, especially in the student’s IEP, the industry earlier this year saw fed- eral legislation on how schools and states must report restraint and seclusion poli- cies, including a provision that exempts the use of child passenger safety re- straints. Linda Bluth, NAPT’s president, said this offers the industry a unique, new opportunity to contribute to the dialogue on student safety. “It will be important for
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