NSTA's Robin Leeds on CNN: 20% of Schools are Reducing Transportation

By Ryan Gray

Robin Leeds, the industry consultant to the National School Transportation Association and a 2009 STN EXPO keynote speaker, was just interviewed on CNN Newsroom regarding massive budget cuts nationwide that are hitting schools, and as a result school transportation services are falling by the wayside.

The American Association of School Administrators recently reported via a survey of its members conducted last month that 44 percent of schools are eliminating field trips and 35 percent are consolidating bus routes as a way to deal with strangling budget freezes and eliminations. Forty-eight states are experiencing shortfalls in their budgets that are affecting education. Today, Leeds told CNN anchor Kyra Phillips that 20 percent of the nation's schools are experiencing some kind of cutback to regular school bus route services.

Phillips, who said she rode the school bus as a child, expressed outrage and asked what effect these cuts will have on child safety, such as opening up students to sexual predators.

While Leeds didn't touch on the sexual predator topic, she did mention that only about 20 students are killed in or around the school bus each year, about 16 on average who aren't even riding the bus at the time and are struck as pedestrians who just disembarked the bus or were about to board, according to U.S. DOT estimates. Sometimes these kids are hit by the bus itself, but more often they are struck by passing motorists. Meanwhile, Leeds said some 800 students on average are killed each year on their way to or from school in other vehicles, waking or riding bicycles, again based on federal estimates.

Leeds did relay to Phillips and viewers a phone call she recently received from a grandmother living in Indiana who was concerned about recent cuts made at her 8-year-old grandchild's school district.

Lack of money was forcing the schools to reduce routes to the point that a local church parking lot was being designated as student congregation area for morning pick-ups and drop-offs. The grandchild lives 3/4 miles from the church, but the only route to and from the church is along a busy four-lane highway with a posted 55 mph speed limit and no shoulder due to highway construction.

As the segment ran out of time, Phillips promised Leeds that CNN would stay on top of the issue and would bring her back in the near future.

Fighting the PR Battle with Parents Requires Some Understanding

By Ryan Gray

As children across the nation prepare for another school year, millions will be heading to school for the very first time. Kindergartners are notorious for envying bigger kids who seem to have all the independence and confidence in the world. Little do they know!

It makes me chuckle that these young students want so badly to grow up, eager to take on all of life's responsibility, when sometimes I want so badly to just go outside and play. But then I remember I felt the same way at that age, as do most of us.

Still, these kids are very young and oftentimes very small. The school bus could be a scary place ... with all of those big kids, all those big steps to climb. But a blog originating from Tallahassee, Fla., points out that it is oftentimes the parents who are the most scared. Despite her in-coming kindergartner desperately wanting to ride the bus (of course, because he is a big kid!), a mother is petrified that her son is too young to ride unattended. She questions if her child will be left on the bus or let off at the wrong stop. And there are plenty of comments from other mothers telling her not to do it!

Think about your own operation, if it even buses kindergartners, and how user friendly it is to not only your youngest riders but their parents? Do you take the time to find out if some of your new kids are first born, meaning their parents are probably sick to their stomach at the thought of turning their baby loose into the big, bad world.

Food for thought as the buses begin to roll out of the yard.

School Bus Safety Misses Kids Like Marcus

By Ryan Gray

Crashes happen. They are a byproduct of life. But accidents they rarely are. Usually, a traffic collision results from some sort of operator error. Short of a vehicle malfunction, they usually arise due to driver behavior that could have been avoided. That's a testament to safety of school bus drivers, as on average six children die on-board the bus each year.

I know, one is too many, but school buses do represent the safest form of ground transportation in America. The federal government admits as much. But does such a claim also pays disservice to the 8,500 or so children who are injured as a result of crashes, whether those be the fault of school bus driver or other motorists.

One of these students is Marcus Button, a Tampa Bay, Fla., teen who suffered life altering injuries as a result of a 2007 crash that resulted when a school bus driver failed yield the right of way. The boy and his parents are suing the Pasco County school district, and the trial started late last month.

Marcus detailed on the stand how the brain damage he suffered took away his sense of smell and most of his sense of taste. He was hospitalized for three months following the accident and underwent several surgies to repair his broken face.

The plot thickens, however, when you realize that Marcus was not riding on the school bus but in a friend's car. Would the teen be preparing for the upcoming college academic year, parties and football games this fall had he been on the yellow bus instead of struggling to even walk? Perhaps. Regardless, it serves as a reminder that school bus operators cannot forget those students who for whatever reason don't ride the bus, whether they choose not to or are ineligible to ride in the first place. And with the economy and resulting reductions or all out cuts to school transportation, those numbers are growing.

It also puts a face the thousands of students who do ride the school bus but are injured in crashes. Most are minor, but life-altering injuries occur there, too. In two years, all newly manufactured small school buses must be equipped with lap/shoulder restraints. They will remain an option on all large buses.

It will be interesting to not only see data on how many serious injuries will be reduced by seat belts but how the technology might school buses seem even safer to parents and kids like Marcus who chose not to utilize the service. It might just positively alter thousands of additional lives.