Before heading into a long holiday weekend, here are a few items of note. And don’t forget to give thanks for all you have! Tell us exactly what you are thankful for on our Facebook page.
The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch reports that Columbus City Schools suspended bus driver Tia Denton without pay pending a mandatory hearing after police arrested her for failing a sobriety test on Monday. Officers pulled her bus over for suspected drunk driving and noted her speech was slurred, her eyes were glassy and she reeked of alcohol. On board with Denton was a 9-year-old girl and 12-year-old boy.
Needless to say, Denton failed the subsequent sobriety test and admitted to drinking two beers and a “tall cup” of whiskey following her morning route that day.
Denton wasn’t the only school bus driver cited for drunk driving this week. Joining the Hall of Shame is substitute bus driver William M. Tucker of Kokomo-Center Consolidated School Corporation, located north of Indianapolis. IncNow reports that police were summoned to the district after receiving a call that Tucker was observed outside of a local restaurant prior to his route emptying a beverage from a can into a cup and tossing the can. The witness picked up the can, which turned out to be Miller beer, and gave it to Transportation Director Larry Johnson, who then called police.
NBC 5 in Dallas media asking tough questions of the Dallas County Schools after learning that $17 million of bond funds were spent on purchasing stop-arm cameras and on-board security cameras, when school districts are frequently able to obtain the surveillance systems, especially those that monitor motorists who illegally pass stopped school buses, for free from vendors.
Dallas County Schools is an intermidated educational agency that provides school bus transportation services for 11 area school districts. Superintendent Rick Sorrells tells NBC 5 investgative reporter Scott Friedman that the agency hopes to pay off the purchases within the next few years through fines from tickets to illegal passers. But only 40 percent of tickets issued have not been paid to the tune of $6 million.
Friedman also reports from Cobb County Schools outside Atlanta, which, as many of our readers know, works with American Traffic Solutions to install stop-arm cameras and to run a ticket enforcement program. ATS installs the cameras, maintains them and handles the fines for free while splitting the revenue from the tickets 50-50 with the district. But Dallas did not want to enter into a revenue sharing program. Instead, it wanted to install cameras on all buses in the fleet.
Watch the report and tell us what you think on Facebook.
Around the same time NHTSA was finalizing its final rule published this week on three-point seat belts in motorcoaches and buses (excluding school buses, of course), students who rely on transit near Grand Junction, Colo., could soon be buckling up. The Roaring Fork Transportation Authority is performing a feasibility study of adding seat belts after a rollover accident last month injured 11 passengers.
Jacque Whitsitt, chairwoman of the RFTA board of directors, said during a monthly meeting earlier this month that she would like to see riders at least have the option to wear a seat belt (the article does not report if the restraints would be two-point or three-point). Whitsitt added that seat belts on buses are similar to giving pedestrians the option to cross streets at a crosswalk.
As more transportation departments become tech savvy by implementing tablet usage among personnel and even school bus drivers, one school district in Canada caught our eye when the Lethbridge Herald reported that Palliser Regional Schools near Alberta introduced an app that sends notifications directly to users’ cell phones when buses are cancelled or delayed.
The app, designed by an Edmonton-based web design company called Box Clever, is modeled after similar apps already in use in other school districts in northern parts of the province. It sends bus schedule information from the school board’s website directly to users’ cell phones, and allows users to select their child’s route for relevant notifications. District officials said it launched the bus app to allow students and parents the opportunity to keep an eye on what its buses are doing from day to day on the road. Plus, it’s simply a sign of the times.
This week we learned of how an Ohio student turned being bullied into earning a black belt in tae kwan do, and how the school district learned from this experience and created new programs promoting a positive environment among students at school. Devin Lewis was awarded a scholarship to Ultimate Leadership Martial Arts in Springboro, and earned his black belt during the summer.
The scholarship came after he received a wave of support from students when Lewis and his mother went public with a bullying incident that occurred on the school bus a few years ago. A student had set fire to Lewis’ hair, singing it while burning his pride.
That incident lead to a lot of changes with Lewis and other students at the school. In fact, students, some he didn’t even know, ended up making an anti-bullying video. This also made school officials take a step back and think of ways to promote a positive environment at school.
Now, two years after the incident and with a black belt to be proud about, Lewis’ mother told the Local 12 WKRC in Cincinnati: “Devin knows who he is and he doesn’t have to be anybody else but Devin and it doesn’t matter if you want to accept him or not, he is who he is and nobody is going to make him feel bad about himself.”
