goes “above and beyond” what most states require for their driver trainers, Jurewicz pointed out, as they must by certified by the state as examiners.


“School bus drivers must be road-tested annually on defensive driving and we have a form that tells you what to look for,” added Jurewicz, herself a certified examiner. “Te examiner conducts behind-the-wheel road tests for every driver every other year. Te examiner also conducts oral and written exams on everything a CDL driver must know that’s in the manual.” Jurewicz said the New York DMV audits the examiner’s files to make


sure all of the exams and physicals are up to date. Jurewicz employs a full-time trainer. “I’m confident that we will fall well within whatever guidelines they come up with for examiners,” she said. Lynn Hower, executive director of the School Transportation


Association of Indiana, said some of her colleagues are taking a wait- and-see attitude on the rule’s language. “Tey are waiting until we get closer to 2020 to see if the language gets more specific,” Hower said. “Most people want to know exactly what it is they should be doing, because it’s easier for them to do their jobs. Without specifics, everyone will go their own way. We see that now.” Michael LaRocco, transportation director for the Indiana Department of Education and NASDPTS president-elect, said he inquired about specifics and was told by the FMCSA that it wanted to give school districts as much flexibility as possible. “Tey’ve given us a broad scope of things


to be covered, but not a lot of specifics,” said LaRocco. “My job is to get to a point where we can give school districts an outline of what to expect, to make sure they cover topics based on federal regulations.” Jeff Cassell, president of the School Bus


practices and processes, to help all locations gain compliance with the new rules.” Cassell said he and an NAPT representative spent four hours at FMCSA headquarters in Washington, D.C., making sure their understanding of the new rules was correct. A news release announcing the collaboration was scheduled to be issued last month after press deadline. NASDPTS Executive Director Charlie Hood said some of the concerns are legitimate, adding that anytime there are new rules, people get concerned. “Understandably, they want a step-by-step roadmap on how to implement them, but a lot of school districts and states are already doing what the training rule requires,” Hood said. “It’s a matter of registering as training providers to be included in the federal database. Tat process should not be that difficult.” Hood said the new rule is not prescriptive, even though school districts must include some content they do not currently have in their training, such as night driving. He called it an outline of areas that should be covered during training. “During the negotiated rule-mak- ing process, a lot of different agencies were in the room,” Hood said. “Tere was a lot of input to make sure the bill was not onerous.”


Indiana school bus drivers attend recent training for a new state law on preschool student occupant restraints. It’s an example of the increasing requirements of drivers on both the state and federal levels.


Safety Company, said the new regulations are deliberately vague. “(Te feds) never want to do your job for you,” Cassell said. “Tey give you an outline of which subjects to address, but they don’t tell you how to address them.” Cassell, whose company develops bus driver training programs, said he welcomes the Final Rule, because it establishes a national set of minimum standards for bus driver training. “Each state has its own set of minimum requirements for school bus driver train- ing and they’re all over the map,” Cassell said. “Te new rules put in a standard minimum requirement across all states.” He noted that while the regulation does not set a minimum


classroom hourly requirement, it does identify the areas that need to be addressed, such as the general knowledge, passenger and school bus endorsements. He adds that most school districts already do most of what the new rules require. “Some districts only train their state’s requirements and those re-


quirements are usually the minimum,” Cassell said. “Most districts exceed the state minimums. It’s not the length of the training that matters, it’s the quality of that training and the outcomes.” Cassell is working with the NAPT to “create the materials,


A LONG PROCESS WITH NO GUARANTEES School districts are also concerned that fulfilling the requirements of the new rule will lengthen the training and licensing of new bus drivers, which could exacerbate the nationwide driver shortage. Te rule already adds several steps in the process, by requiring school districts to electronically transmit a driver’s information to the FMCSA, which will relay that information to the state licensing agencies, which only then will administer the skills test. According to the regulation summary, ELDT applicants, “…must complete a prescribed program of instruction provided by an entity that


is listed on FMCSA’s trainer provider registry (TPR). FMCSA will submit training certification information to the state driver licensing agencies that may only administer CDL skills tests for the Class A and Class B CDL…after verifying the certification information is present in the driver’s record.” For this to happen, Cassel said school districts and contractors that train their drivers must contact the FMCSA and obtain a number to be included in the FMCSA TPR. Otherwise, they cannot continue training. He said transportation departments must also develop safety management systems that require school districts to identify and document the hazards involved in what they do, analyze those hazards and take action to mitigate them. “In transportation, we’ve sort of done this, but now it is a


requirement,” he added. School districts are already encountering logjams when scheduling


road tests with their DMVs. Jurewicz, for example, said it takes two to three months to take a skills test in New York. Tis requires districts to schedule a skills test with the DMV as soon as the applicant receives a temporary permit and begins behind-the-wheel training. In Indiana, where third-party test sites are located around the


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