As Gov. Pat Quinn attempts to deal with a $15 billion budget deficit, student transporters remain on pins and needles.
Cinda Menenghetti, the director of transportation at the Illinois State Board of Education, told school transportation representatives this week that there was still no word from Springfield, where a committee hearing was held, on what would happen to the $95 million in transportation funding.
“We pled our case and we hope it didn’t fall on deaf ears,” she said.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports that schools systems have not been helped by rising fuel prices as they were already preparing for a lot less money in their transportation coffers next school year.
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In addition to Illinois, these states aren’t doing so well, either, when it comes to astronomical budget deficits. And as we all know, school support services like transportation are often the first to be cut.
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And despite efforts to end school busing in Hawaii, according to the Honolulu Star Advertiser, the yellow vehicles are the best way to reduce traffic congestion.
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Despite a pilot saying landing without the assistance of an air traffic controller is “no big deal,” Wednesday’s news of an air traffic controller in Reno, Nev., falling asleep while a plane desperately tried to land so the flight team could get a severely sick passenger to the hospital should give our readers pause. And not just because several hundred of them will be flying into Reno this summer to attend the STN EXPO.
Sleep apnea, or plain drowsiness, has risen to the top of concerns when it comes to commercial drivers, especially school bus drivers. Just last week, a Philadelphia-area school bus driver pleaded guilty to causing a fatal crash last year. At issue was not only distraction from using his iPod and cell phone, but it is also thought that he was drowsy.
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And speaking of distracted driving, it’s National Distracted Driving Month.
