After the Hawaii Department of Education cut 103 school bus routes in July, some 2,300 students on the island state were left without a ride to school.
Parents scrambled to arrange for other transportation and voiced concern about the safety of hoofing it to school. So when school resumed on Monday, no one was sure what to expect. The new Assistant Superintendent Ray L’Heureux acknowledged the news took many parents by surprise, reported KITV News. The DOE said it would probably be another month before it has a good handle on the consequences of the school bus cuts.
Meanwhile, the city transit service added more buses in affected areas, such as Kapolei, Mililani, Ewa, Waipahu and Pearl City, and will track student ridership to determine if the new routes need tweaking. One longtime school bus operator fears the school bus cuts will only worsen Oahu’s severe traffic congestion. Also, student bus fares were increased .
Hawaii isn’t alone in major school bus cutbacks. Other school systems across the nation are increasing walk distances and reducing bus service because of dwindling transportation dollars. Hundreds of children in Fairview, Ill., and Grand Junction, Colo., now have to walk to school or find alternate transportation after Metro East School District and School District 51, respectively, suffered a budget backlash. Because of Illinois’ massive debt, Metro East slashed its student transportation budget by 50 percent.
Meanwhile, the Grand Junction school district projects it will save up to $600,000 by cutting bus routes for elementary students who live within two miles of school and for secondary students living within three miles of school. Parents are worried their children won’t be safe walking to school because of traffic and some sex offenders residing in the area.
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Piggybacking on a message from NHTSA the past two summers, the Kansas State Department of Education’s school transportation and school bus safety division reminds this week that the heat remains on for school bus drivers to check for sleeping students and to stock their buses with drinking water.
Everyone knows how hot it’s been nationwide the past couple of months, and with school starting, the office says the “oppressive heat” that has included about two dozen days of temperatures over 100 in Kansas, according to the National Weather Service, the Kansas DOE says bus drivers must especially be on the look out for sleeping children at the conclusion of routes.
It is also encouraging school bus drivers to have allow students to have water with them on buses, especially those without air conditioning. The department generally discourages eating or drinking on the bus but points out that drivers need to ensure students are safe and hydrated as well as themselves and para-professionals. This can include storing water on the bus. The department also says this means schools need to secure any coolers to keep them from becoming “flying objects.”
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Navistar this week announced it entered a nonbinding memo of understanding” with Cummins Emissions Solutions, which will supply its urea-based aftertreatment system to Navistar for use in heavy-duty trucks. The ICT+ engine technology announced last month is in response to upcoming 2014 and 2017 EPA emissions standards to reduce greenhouse gases. Company representatives have said the immediate focus is transitioning to big-bore engines to ICT+ but that a transition for the medium-duty segement is also in the works.
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Head Start and preschool educators received a shot in the arm in an election year no less with a report published this week by the First Five Years Fund, an advocate for Head Start and early childhood education. It claims that early childhood education plays a crucial role in ensuring the nation’s long-term economic health.
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Earlier this week was the five year “anniversary” of the I-35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis. Readers may remember a photo in the September 2007 magazine edition that showed a First Student school bus among the vehicles stranded on the crippled bridge.
The organization Save Our Bridges has published on its website an interactive map that shows the location, age and daily traffic of 7,980 “fracture critical and structurally deficient” bridges across the country. How many are used by school buses?
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A federal judge will soon decide whether to schedule a trail date or dismiss a lawsuit case an Oregon school bus driver filed against his school district employer over a Confederate flag on his pickup truck while parked on school property. Kenneth Webber won the first round in court, as a magistrate judge ruled yesterday there was no evidence that his display—the flag with the word “redneck” on I—had disrupted school operations at the Jackson County School District. Part of the judge’s conclusion included: “The display of a flag is an act of symbolic expression protected under the First Amendment.”
Webber, who has driven K-12 students for six years for the district, received the flag as a gift from his father. He ignored repeated orders from a supervisor to remove the controversial symbol of the Confederacy, eventually was suspended and then fired. He later sued the district, arguing it violated his right to express even an offensive idea without facing censorship or punishment from the government. The school superintendent said the flag violated the district’s anti-harassment policy. Plus, the district has 37 percent student minorities.
Webber claims he—nor the flag—is racist, and that he doesn’t fly it for political reasons. The married father of four said the flag simply represents his “redneck” lifestyle of hunting, fishing and family. However, most people perceive the flag as a racist or negative symbol. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, more than 500 extremist groups use the Confederate flag as one of their symbols.
