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Written by Stephane Babcock
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Tuesday, 12 October 2010 07:28 |
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The National School Transportation Association recently took issue with some of the statements made by the Transportation Trades Department (TTD) of the AFL-CIO that school bus safety continues to suffer from "glaring problems."
Although the association agrees that the service its members and the entire industry provide is often overlooked by the general public, it disagreed with what it called “reckless characterizations of the industry and of private contractors,” and pointed out a number of discrepancies in the AFL-CIO statement released last month, namely:
- TTD complains that school transportation and its employees are exempt from FMCSA and OSHA rules and oversight. In fact, contractors and their employees ARE covered by these agencies, and NSTA has long advocated for equal standards for all school transportation operations.
- As far back as 2002, NSTA promoted idle reduction strategies adopted by our members to address the main cause of excessive diesel exhaust. We have worked with EPA from the beginning of Clean School Bus USA to reduce emissions, and many of our members have retrofitted or replaced their older buses for the benefit of both passengers and drivers. One of the most attractive benefits of privatization is the replacement of a district’s old fleet with the contractor’s new buses, buses that are ergonomically better for the driver, safer for the students, and healthier for everyone.
- The employees of private contractors ARE able to collect UI benefits during school vacation periods. That’s another of the advantages that employees gain when school districts privatize.
- The criminal background checks that contractor employees undergo are required by the state in many cases, and by the school district customer in others. The public demands that school bus drivers be thoroughly investigated before assuming responsibility for students, and our member companies take every precaution to ensure student safety. For more than a decade, NSTA has worked to improve the efficiency of criminal record checks at both the state and federal levels.
- In 2003 NSTA met with officials at the federal Office of Special Education Programs to bring to their attention the failure of school districts to include transportation providers in special needs transportation decisions, and to provide adequate training for drivers of students with special needs. As a result OSEP sent a memorandum to all states reminding them of their responsibilities and directing them to instruct local districts to include school bus drivers in special needs training. We agree that this is still too often neglected, which is why our members provide their own specialized training for their employees.
Read the full statement from NSTA.
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Safety 
