Hail, Hail the Band’s All ... Wait, Where Did it Go?

A quick look at how the economy is affecting school activity trips ...

As has been documented for sometime during the current economic recession, schools have been forced to make deep cuts to their transportation operations to ensure money continues to flow into classrooms. In additional to reductions in regular routes and school bus driver positions, a popular victim has been school activity trips and namely school bands. Take what has happened to the award-winning Richland High School band in Texas’ Birdville Independent School District.

Budget cuts have forced the band to decline an invitation to attend the prestigious Bands of America Grand National contest in Indianapolis this November. Bus transportation to such events held outside the greater Fort Worth area can cost the school district $2,000 a day not to mention competition entry fees, motel rooms and food. Last year, the American Association of School Administrators surveyed members and found that nearly half reported cut backs to student field trips. With many months, at least, remaining before the economy turns and state budget deficits affecting upwards of 48 states, things are getting tighter and tighter for schools

Back to School a Time to Recall Security

By Ryan Gray

No mention of school transportation is made in an article in the Aug. 9 issue of Parade magazine discussed a way of life many commuters know all too well: mass transit as a terror target. Still, mass transit has recieved $400 million last year to use on security initiatives, a figure the American Public Transportation Association points out is less than 2 percent of the money spent on airline security since 9/11.

Meanwhile, school transportation has received about $7 million in federal funds over the past five or six years total, and most of that money has gone to clean diesel initiatives, according to American School Bus Council members this week, this despite boasting about 10 billion individual students rides each school year, about the same number of riders that APTA says utilize mass transit annually.

Still, as schools start up again, safety and security is a common theme in newspaper articles and TV news segments around the country. But few will talk about terrorism. True, there has yet to be a catastrophic incident involving mass transit or school buses in this country, but the Transportation Security Administration reported 171 mass-transit incidents worldwide in 2007. Public transportation in general remains a soft target for terrorists, yet the funding pales in comparison to what airlines have received since 9/11, about $20 trillion.

Hopefully it won't take another 9/11 to change things.

Update: Yesterday, U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced $1.2 billion in additional federal stimulus grants to transit that will in part address increased security. There has been no such funds for school transportation. The only stimulus money schools have been eligible for regarding transportation services was $156 million earlier this year tied to the National Clean Diesel Campaign.

Tales of Lost Love, Never-Forgotten Memories

Hilton Head, S.C., newspaper The Island Packet recently posted a collection of its readers' stories revolving around the yellow bus. The memories include a tale of a first kiss and it's unfortunate repercussions, singing "Doo-wop" songs on the ride home and falling off the bus at the bus stop on the first day at a new school.

You've Heard of Adopt-a-Highway, Now There's Adopt-a-Watt

A new program that solicits corporate sponsorship of solar-power lights around communities, like at a Taylor, Mich., school district's bus stops, is being offered around the nation to help promote projects that utilize renewable alternative fuels.

The program will install 50 solar light stands with the revenue being evenly split between the city and the school district. Sponsorships of around $2,000 each will completely pay for the lights, with the sponsors being listed on a sign similar to shows that adorn stretches of highway.

The excess funds can be used for any purpose that reduces fossil fuel consumption and operating costs. Projects under consideration at Taylor include the purchase of new plug-in hybrid electric vehicles for the city and, for the school district, cleaner burning biodiesel fuel for school buses or even large-scale solar electric systems for school buildings.

The school board approved the program on July 14.

Adopt-a-Watt is already in place at several airports across the country including at Kalamazoo/Battle Creek International Airport and Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport. The program also has it's first celebrity spokesperson, Linda Gray of the 1980s TV show "Dallas" fame.

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.

A Different Kind of Smoking Bus

Tom Vanderbilt, author and the proprietor of the blog "How We Drive," touches on the subject of smoking while driving, prompted by a comment made by a reader, a school bus driver, in an earlier post:

“I don’t smoke, but I don’t see smoking a cigarette as a highly distracting activity and I doubt that there was ever a fatality in a school bus tied to the driver smoking while driving.”

We can't recall ever hearing of a school bus crash much less a fatality caused by a driver who is smoking. But, also as far as we know, most school bus drivers shouldn't be smoking while driving kids in the first place. Many school districts ban drivers from smoking on the bus with or without kids onboard.

What are the regulations in your school district?

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.