FRISCO, Texas — With more school districts turning to private companies to provide non-school bus transportation for students with special needs, the time is now for public-sector professionals and non-profit safety advocates to develop standards for service, driver training, background checks, oversight and more, according to panelists who discussed essential considerations when contracting with such firms.
That was the message from a panel that discussed necessary considerations for selecting non-school bus vehicle providers to open Monday’s agenda at TSD Conference.
While several states have developed regulations governing these services, consistent standards are lacking nationwide amid a lack of school bus drivers and the school buses themselves not always being the most feasible vehicle, or the one that provides the least restrictive environment. As a result, the National Association for Pupil Transportation (NAPT) issued a statement earlier this year that it is “important to enumerate clear and reasonable criteria to help school districts assess these services and ensure that they meet their operational needs and the needs of their children.”
And the National Congress for School Transportation has brought the topic to its state delegations to vote on potential guidelines next May in Des Moines, Iowa.
“We’re not used to options,” said Launi Schmutz-Harden, a TSD Tenured Faculty member and retired director of transportation for Washington County Schools in St. George, Utah, during the general session sponsored by EverDriven. “They came in very quickly and they transported students quicker than we were able to put policies in place, procedures in place, training. I think the cart was before the horse and now we’re [playing] catch-up. As a transportation community we have new partners and we need to grow together.”
NAPT public policy liaison Peter Mannella, who moderated the panel discussion, said the pupil transportation industry is “in a grown-up moment having a mature conversation about what do we want for the kids.”
“The lobbyist in me always looks for opportunities for people I work with, my clients, to advance themselves to empower themselves. I think that’s kind of where we’re at with this,” he continued. “When you’re empowered, you don’t let things happen to you. You get involved in making what’s supposed to happen, happen. Your voice is there, your strength is there, your knowledge is there.”
He added that the industry now has “some amazing services that are being provided, that cropped up because we’re an entrepreneurial economy. … This community is saying, that’s good but it would be better if we could shape it differently, if we could put some restrictions or regulations or requirements around it to help us be sure we’re doing the right thing.”
Susan Shutrump, also a TSD Tenured Faculty member president and a recently retired supervisor of occupational and physical therapy services for the Trumbull County Educational Center in Niles, Ohio, said the discussion was a recognition that the conversation about transporting students with disabilities and special needs has “finally gotten to the point where we are looking at individualized transportation plans that go beyond a child’s individual education plan.”
“We’re calling groups together, we’re getting everyone to the table to sometimes write very complex individual transportation plans, and what I’ve heard for many, many years is when we talk about the vehicle, the transporter will say, ‘That’s not the purview of the IEP team. You don’t have that say. That’s one of the things we keep to ourselves.’
“But what we’re finding, as we know, is there’s certain equipment that can’t be used in all these different vehicles,” she continued. “And, so, in some sense, if we have to have certain specialized procedures, certain equipment, it is vehicle specific.”
She said the industry must work together to make appropriate, safe decisions, and alternative transportation is just another tool in the tool box to consider.
“It can work toward the needs of our children. So, thank goodness, we have this option,” she added.
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Still, Shutrump said one districts are especially vulnerable when private companies believe that because they are transporting students they are exempt from safety restraint laws that apply only to yellow buses.
“It was never intended to be utilized or waived in these other vehicles where it’s even more important because they aren’t big and yellow and [aren’t] going to push anything out of their way in a crash,” she said. “You’re going see incredibly more high forces, G-forces and injury-producing forces in a smaller vehicle.”
Alexandra Robinson, the third TSD Tenured Faculty member and former executive director at the New York City Department of Education, expressed concern about the potential pitfalls of districts entering into agreements without the full involvement of transportation professionals.
“I get worried that we have people who are not experts in the room making decisions for us and then, while we are technically meeting the law because we are getting students to school, we are not meeting the intent of the law,” she said.
She warned school districts are being sued by parents of children with disabilities or special needs because transportation departments aren’t aware of contract details with alternative service providers.
“Often times, your contracts are written at your procurement and purchasing level or written at your (community-based organization) or superintendent level, and the department for which the contracting services are being purchased aren’t even at the table,” Robinson said. “You need to know for what you are contracting and do you have any input. … Our performance expectations should not be any different than the (key performance indicators) we set up for our own fleets.”
She insisted that monitoring and compliance of alternative transportation services needs to “hands on, observable, in person, being able to actually screen a wheelchair, meeting with parents, all of that stuff before a child even begins a service.”
“You need to build into compensation that when there is a lack of performance there is a violation or a liquidated damage because that will encourage your contractor, if at all possible, to be on time,” she continued. “You need to make the violation and/or liquidated damage important enough that the contractor will not just say, ‘It’s only $250 today if we don’t have a driver. We’ll take the hit.’ You want to ask for enough indemnity, liability, damage and property insurance that would cover not just you, not just them, but all of the neighbors, families and rest of the district because it will get expensive if something happens. If a company cannot get bonded and/or insured for the amount you’re asking then that might be a problem because they don’t have a track record with their carrier to get that kind of coverage.”
Along that line, Schmutz-Harden said transportation departments professionals need to make sure that alternative companies train employees to the district’s standards “because that kid deserves the best driver.”
“They need training on what to do on a day-to-day basis, but they also need to know what to do in an emergency. There’s a big difference in what to do what to do when evacuating children,” she said, emphasizing the importance of annual fitness tests.
Robinson also said districts should insist upon complete, regular updates from alternative providers about the number of hours their drivers are logging not only with them but in other jobs to prevent accidents caused by fatigue.
