The special needs school bus pulls up and no parent or family member is home to receive the child. Go figure. With more than 500 special needs students on Tempe Elementary school buses every afternoon, even a one-percent occurrence is a huge problem to an otherwise well-choreographed routing system.
So the bus continues on, completing the route, and if time allows, doubling back for a second drop-off attempt. One of two things happens now: The student is successfully dropped at home with a responsible individual; or the student is delivered back to school into the waiting arms of a principal, who is rightfully wearing a look of frustration.
Even more common still, is when the special needs bus pulls up to drop off a child, but the driver can’t verify the identity or authority of the individual waiting to receive the child. Maybe it is someone the driver has never seen before or we have a substitute driver on the route. Prior to commencing curb-to-curb transportation services, our parents complete a form listing the names and relationships of family and friends authorized to receive their child at drop-off.
In an attempt to cover all bases and plan for all possible contingencies, parents will sometimes list dozens of names. These lists are ever-changing, and have to be kept in dispatch and entered into the computer.
The bus pulls up, the driver does not recognize the person, the driver radios dispatch, the name is run through the computer. There are three possible outcomes: an exact match, a partial match or no name match at all. Then there is the possibility that the responsible person will not or cannot produce a photo ID. Guess what happens next? Well, remember that principal with “that look”?
We have not yet fully solved the first problem of no one home to receive the special needs child, but one year ago, we came up with a 100-percent failsafe system to ensure that our special needs drivers can quickly verify the authority of the person waiting to receive the special needs child.
The new procedure allows the parent to select either a four-digit PIN or a one-word code, which can be shared with family and friends who might meet the bus in the afternoon. The unique PIN or code word is listed on the driver’s route sheet next to the student’s name and safeguarded so that only the bus driver, assistant and the transportation office staff have access.
So even in a pinch, the parent stuck in traffic or at an appointment can call a neighbor, verbally give them the PIN or code word and have them wait for the bus.
In the event a parent wants to change the PIN or code word, they can fill out a new form with the driver right on the spot and the information will be immediately changed throughout the transportation database. Then the parent can share the new selection with select family and friends.
This idea was developed in transportation and approved by our legal counsel and our student support team. It was easy to implement, and schools, drivers and parents see it as a revolutionary solution to a significant and long-standing problem. The code words submitted by parents are often imaginative and make us smile because we can tell they have special meaning to the family. We will accept sports team names, even if they are rivals to our Arizona teams.
Paul M. Novak retired from the U.S. Army in 1995 and recently retired again after 21 years as the director of transportation and school safety for Tempe School District #3 in Arizona. He is now president and CEO of Gauge Precision Consulting, LLC.
