The Marion County (Ind.) coroner ruled that school bus driver Thomas Spencer II, 60, suffered a fatal heart attack that led to him crashing into a bridge column on March 12. School bus passenger Donasty Smith, 5, was also killed.
The coroner said Spencer suffered from atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and peripheral vascular disease as well as hypertension, diabetes and obesity. No alcohol or drugs were found in his system. It’s a reminder of the importance of school bus driver physical fitness and related medical and physical examinations by certified physicians.
Valencia Holloway told WISHTV.com she wished she had listened to her granddaughter’s concern the day before she died.
“She told me that Sunday, she said, ‘Mama, I don’t want to get on that bus on Monday.’ I feel like maybe had I listened to her that Sunday and not put her on the bus, she’d be here,” Holloway said.
Alabama recently passed a tough new law targeting school bus drivers who shouldn’t be driving in the first place.
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Phone companies have been ordered by the FCC to stop price-gouging school district customers, reported eSchool News in this month’s digital edition. The federal eRate program launched in 1997 to help schools and libraries pay for telecommunications services, Internet access and Internet connections needed for classrooms. But the FCC had yet to provide guidance on “lowest corresponding price.” Several states have sued AT&T and Verizon for charging local districts much higher prices than other customers.
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Many school districts nationwide have been taken by surprise by expensive, required cleaning of emissions control systems after receiving grants for the technology for school buses. Contributor Art Gissendaner explores this topic in the July magazine edition of School Transportation News. In doing so, he spoke with grant recipients as well as emissions control providers, which included FSX, Inc., a company that manufactures diesel particulate filter cleaning equipment. Check out a video demonstration.
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Could bullying lead to a reduced number of students transported via the yellow bus? That could be one consequence of a growing trend. LRP Publications writes in its recent edition of its “Special Ed e-News” that home-bound placements are on the rise as a response to bullying. Doctors are now writing prescriptions that certain students can be removed from the school environment, as was the case with one high school student who suffered anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder after being bullied and another who was bipolar. LRP reminds that such home-bound placements, however, can violate LRE, the least-restrictive environment clause of IDEA, and Section 504, if it is not appropriate for the student.
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USA Today breaks down for readers what a 2014 final rule on Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children (LATCH) will mean for child safety restaint systems in passenger vehicles as well as school buses. Joseph Colella, a child safety advocate and one of the petitioners who asked NHTSA to change the rule, is quoted as saying the anchor requirements are based on old child seats and outdated recommendations on how long kids should be in child seats. Colella’s neice died in a 1994 crash when she was secured in a seat that didn’t fit the car.
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The American Public Transportation Association reported that the House Appropriations Subcommittee approved a fiscal year 2013 funding bill that would fund federal transit programs at nearly $10.5 billion. The House bill approved on June 7 differs from the comparable bill that has been approved by the full Senate Appropriations Committee in that it provides $227 million less for the New Starts program. The House is not in session next week and is not expected to move the bill to the full Appropriations Committee before the week of June 18. The House funding proposal assumes that any program changes will be dictated by the authorization bill that is now in a House/Senate conference committee.
