SPECIAL REPORT


ty Company to develop driver skills and special needs training. Jeff Cassell, the president and founder of SBSC, told STN that the new training is on par with training he developed for school bus drivers. Another company, FirstAlt by First Student, developed special needs train- ing for drivers alongside Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. These companies and others generally must meet feder- al and state regulations when transporting students. TNCs, however, follow public utility commission


(PUC) rules at the state or local level, as do taxicabs. The Colorado Department of Education is a leading exam- ple of a state that has collaborated with the local PUC to develop complementary regulations. The issue arose two years ago, following a complaint


logged by EverDriven. An administrative law judge ruled that HopSkipDrive should be held to a higher standard because it contracts directly with school districts. The CDE took this as a signal it could enforce in its state rules—for school buses, alternative transportation com- panies and otherwise—on TNCs as well. HopSkipDrive objected, stating that a change in governing bodies would conflict with its business model. Resulting leg- islation was enacted last year to keep TNCs under PUC purview while also requiring additional oversight. The Colorado PUC now requires TNC drivers of


students to take approved training developed in con- sultation with CDE that includes special considerations for transporting students with disabilities, emergency preparedness, safe pick-up and drop-off procedures, and CPR and first aid training, which can be done virtually. Drivers must continue to submit to criminal background checks but also complete daily vehicle inspection reports. The law also requires drivers to pass a medical exam and submit a form developed by CDE and the PUC. If the driver has a certified medical exam conducted within the past 18 months, they can submit that instead. Editor’s note—This article corrects a previous version that


inaccurately stated new requirements of the Colorado TNC law. HopSkipDrive can transport students with disabilities as well as any others a school district contract calls for.


Safety Concerns & Next Steps Despite an increasing number of students with IEPs and students experiencing homelessness, many in the industry are hesitant to use these companies because they do not use school buses or CDL drivers. “Our concerns lie in ensuring the safety and integrity of


the vehicles in which our children are riding and the cali- ber and preparation of the individuals who are behind the


wheel of those vehicles,” reads a statement from NAPT. “We are not comfortable compromising on that safety.” Charles Gauthier is a retired school bus safety specialist


with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as well as a retired executive director for NASDPTS. He opined that if Congress had the foresight, it would have extended the federal ban on selling 15-passenger non- conforming vans for student transportation to minivans and SUVs—amended in 2005 to ban school districts from purchasing or leasing vehicles with seating capacities of 10 or more. Gauthier also noted that when Congress passed its 1974 School Bus Safety Amendments that led to NHTSA creating the first school-bus-specific federal motor vehicle safety standards three years later, it directed NHTSA to not consider costs and benefits in regulatory analysis because children are too important. “If Congress had not deleted the cost/benefit require-


ment, it’s unlikely any of the school bus specific FMVSSs would have ever been created. And the safety record of school buses would not be what it is,” said Gauthier. “It is these FMVSSs, combined with improved school bus driver training and public awareness programs, which allows the pupil transportation to boast that it is the saf- est mode of highway travel.” He argued that school districts using non-school bus


vehicles, via a company or operated in-house, are violat- ing both the letter and spirit of federal law. “When a crash occurs in one of these alternative vehicles and children are seriously injured or worse, it is a virtual certainty that lawsuits will be brought against all parties in- volved in allowing these vehicles to be used,” he continued. “And this is where a jury, many of whom are parents or grandparents, will decide if only following the letter of the law is acceptable. If we are honest with ourselves, I believe we already know what the jury will decide.” Pete Baxter, a retired state director of transportation


for the Indiana Department of Education and a past president of NASDTPS as well as a former NCST steering committee chair, said NCST has long been hesitant to include non-school bus vehicles in the National Specifi- cations and Procedures. “Why? Such vehicles are inferior to school buses. They jeopardize student safety,” he commented. “The core mission of all NCST [meetings since 1939] is a about safe transportation of students in school buses. Nothing else. … Non-school bus transportation is a state issue. It is not an issue for the school transportation or- ganizations at the national level. To do so undermines the foundations of their credibility.”


Interested in joining the NCST Alternative Transportation writing committee? Email chair Gregg Prettyman at gregg.prettyman@firstgroup.com.


16 School Transportation News • OCTOBER 2023

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