something unexpected happened to me.” Purvis also teaches Transportation Leadership


Academy professional development classes for the California Association of School Business Officials. The academy courses are held Friday evenings and on Saturdays and take about 10 months to complete. The fact that there is a waiting list, despite the robust training involved, proves that there are people hungry for the knowledge to advance their career, he added.


Confences, Contacts and Collaboration Another advocate for professional train- ing is Purvis’ associate Alexandra Robinson, a past-president of the National Assocation of Pupil Transportation. She, too, is an experienced consultant and was instrumental in developing the “So You Want to be a Transportation Su- pervisor?” seminar. She recalled how her own career path shaped her beliefs. “The transition from special needs in the school [as a behavioral therapist] to being a crisis intervention specialist for the transportation department in Orlando, Florida, helped me see all of the places where there were gaps in commu- nication,” she recalled. From there, she moved up to a managerial


position and later led large urban school district departments, including in New York City. She remains passionate about training the indus- try’s next generation of leaders and especially encouraging women to become supervisors. Robinson observed that transportation has


never been a gender equal field. Times are changing though, and Robinson said she’s pleased to see a nice mix of men and women each year attend the Reno class. “We also have a Women in Transportation network,” she added. “It’s so important to meet other transportation professionals and gain a cohort of people to rely on. It’s a safe place for questions. Perhaps you don’t want to ask a particular question in your own district and risk people wondering why you don’t know the answer already.” Robinson said she is proud of the way the


industry has morphed through the years into being more collaborative. “I’m not in the class- room anymore, but I’m still in the business of education,” she commented. “There are still so many districts where the mindset is that there’s the transportation side and the instructional side. Transportation needs to be seen as a partner be-


26 School Transportation News • OCTOBER 2021


cause we’re in the education business, too.” A lot of the training necessary for leadership


positions is what Robinson calls “people stuff.” Is an issue the result of a personality conflict? Is it a human resources issue? Not recognizing people’s strengths? “You might have an employee who isn’t suc-


cessful with the kids on the bus, but who might shine in another role, like delivering school sup- plies during the pandemic,” she added.


Planning for Improvement Robinson pointed out that many people who


move into management tend to supervise as they have been supervised in the past. “In our training, we practice role-play scenarios and talk about the extreme parent and other situa- tions,” she shared. “We also discuss how to set employees up for success. Maybe the previous supervisor wouldn’t speak up to a principal who ignored a driver or was standoffish to a trans- portation employee. They might fear making waves. But [the] supervisor should have that employee’s back. We need to tell our drivers that we’ve spoken to the principal about a situation and that it won’t happen again.” Robinson added that sometimes transporta-


tion departments might benefit from not saying yes quite so quickly, in an effort to provide good customer service. “Another point we stress is that a good supervisor has to make tough decisions,” she said. “How are you going to respond to a challenging scenario like deciding if you should send your assistant director or last technician out on a route when there are no more drivers? “The best way to respond to that problem is,


unfortunately, not to send a technician or your assistant director out to drive. This will prove how dire the situation in transportation is. But what if something happened and you needed them?” Robinson admitted there have been times


when she had to make decisions that did not make her or her superiors look good. “[But] what it did was help draw attention to our staff- ing issues,” she explained. “I’d also ask for the permission to create a job that is a part-time bus attendant and part-time cafeteria worker. Who cares if they are crossing job descriptions if it helps us? In one of my districts there was a child-care program that technicians, drivers and early first shift employees had first-dibs on. That helped people get to work.”


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