Education was at the forefront of the Tuesday and Wednesday sessions of the 2015 NASDPTS Conference, while driving towards the future remained on the frontline of the 41st Annual NAPT Trade Show.
Murrell Martin, NCST steering committee chairman and state director at the Utah State Department of Education, led the discussion that updated attendees of the most recent Congress in May as it moves forward with the forthcoming 2015 National School Transportation Specifications and Procedures, the release of which he added should be imminent.
One of the topics that stood out that will be further addressed in the upcoming guidebook is that transportation groups need to start “working with the media telling school bus stories,” said Martin.
Meanwhile, the NAPT trade show displayed a number of technological advances in student transportation and safety.
As seat belts have overshadowed the conversation since Sunday when NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind announced that school bus need three-point restraints, a number of companies took center stage exhibiting the latest in seat belt technology for school buses.
It should be pointed out that along with Texas, California is one of two states nationwide to already have a three-point seat belt law for school buses. Four other states – Florida, Louisiana, New Jersey and New York – have laws on two-point lap belts.
Also shown were a variety of innovative buses and engines, along with cutting-edge tracking programs, all of which should help keep the planet clean and usher students safely to and from class.
Pete Meslin, director of transportation at Newport-Mesa USD in California, equated the current standards of teaching students, especially special needs students, about bus safety as “banging our heads against the wall.”
“We wait for them to misbehave to teach them. We expect kids to be safe without teaching them how,” said Meslin.
Meslin also recounted his five-week program, The Bus in the Classroom, which teaches special needs students “in a scientific manner” how to function appropriately as they ride the school bus, as well as illustrate to transportation departments of how “educators educate.” He presented an overview to NASDPTS members.
“We can’t ignore special needs students. We can’t miss the opportunity to teach kids,” said Meslin.
STN is working with Meslin to produce a webinar on Bus in the Classroom in February, and he will present a related session at the TSD Conference in Louisville, Kentucky, in March.
