The June edition of School Transportation News included an article on what requirements of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPAC) and the Health Care and Education Reconcilation Act mean to school districts, their employees and those in student transportation.
Then, late last month — literally weeks after we went to press — the Obama Administration announced it was delaying final implementation of the federal law by one year, to Jan. 1, 2015. Essentially, this buys times for school districts to figure out how they will address part-time workers, which often include school bus drivers and other transportation staff, in terms of weekly hours and benefits. The law states that all part-time employees who work on average 30 or more hours a week are eligible to receive employee-subsidized health care. If the employer choose not to offer the benefits, it faces a fine.
Then, earlier this month the National School Boards Association applauded the IRS’ decision to delay the implementation. But that’s all it is…a delay.
Our June article reported that many student transporters nationwide were being instructed to only assign a maximum of 29 hours per week to these part-timers to avoid the requirements. Of course, this could have a big effect on trained, reliable and veteran drivers, who might look elsewhere for employment. This could prove to be even more costly to school districts then if they offered health benefits in the first place, because who would replace these professional bus drivers? School districts would have to essentially start all over and pay the costs associated with recruiting, background checking, certifying and training novice drivers. What could be the resulting effect on student safety not to mention employee morale?
This week, STN obtained a white paper written by Andrew Friedman, an attorney and principal of The Washington Update, which provides the latest federal, regulatory and legal updates from inside the Beltway. Although Friedman published the white paper prior to the extension announced last month for full implementation of the healthcare overhaul, it should prove to be an interesting and informative read as you try and navigate these confusing waters.
CNN Money last week ran an article on one of the latest technological advancements hitting schools: iris scans as the new student ID. The story discusses a study being conducted at Winthrop University in South Carolina of iris-scanning technology used during freshman orientation this summer. Students had their eyes scanned as they received their ID cards last month. The scanners are manufactured by Blinkspot, which last year announced it was rolling out biometric tracking for school buses. The company says its solution, developed in conjunction with 3M Cogent’s biometric identification systems, offers a 99-percent accuracy rate. It was designed to tell exactly what students are riding on buses. There are approximately 24 million student riders on 480,000 school buses, but the company says the answer it most often hears when it asks school districts if they know which children are on which buses is “I don’t know.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIDQ3aaPOGk|550
The Natural Resources Defense Council this week published a study called “Driving Commuter Choice in America” that concludes “It Pays to Take Transit.” NRDC says Americans average close to three million miles on the road each year, or roughly the distance to and from the sun 16,000 times over. Meanwhile, it says ersonal transportation in passenger cars, trucks and SUVs to and from work, school, shopping and recreation account for 20 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. NRDC recommends increased transit use that can reduce driving costs by 14 to 26 percent as well as increased carpooling, telecommuting and “trip-chaining,” or better planning of trips to take care of all errands, appointments, etc.
No mention is made of school busing, but one could and should extrapolate that increased yellow bus use falls under the transit category. That’s the assertion made by the American School Bus Council. This comes at a time when many school districts nationwide are looking to eliminate school busing to cut costs and funnel more money into the classroom. Such is the case in Hoover, Ala., which cut all bus service this past week. The district has been taking a lot of flack for its “its continued commitment to funding for instruction” and issued a response as to why, namely to funnel $2.5 million back to the classroom.
We get that school districts like Hoover are continuing to struggle amid budget contraints. But our question is this: How much good will that money do if kids can’t get to class in the first place?
Look for the yellow bus in a feature film starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore that is expected to hit theaters next spring. A representative of “Blended” contacted School Transportation News earlier this month with some questions. Is there any difference between buses in Atlanta and Hartford County, Conn.? What does a “Flat nose” school bus look like? What is the most common type of school bus in transit today? The answers, in short, of course are “yes,” the conventional school bus has the “butt nose” and, well conventional buses are the most common. We also passed along information for contacts in both Georgia and Connecticut to help with all the particulars on school bus specs, because we all want the film to get it correct, right?
