Guide to Appropriate Bus Driver Attire

Please refer to this completely hand-created dress code guide when preparing for work each morning. Keep in mind that attire sporting emblems or advertising for alcoholic beverages, drugs or other controlled substances, sexual innuendo, or other inappropriate message will not be allowed while transporting students or while operating as an agent of our company.

To the public: please let us know if one of our employees arrives at your stop inappropriately attired. We will address the situation immediately and appreciate your assistance.

Safe Driving!

Kari

Bus Seat Damage

Driving my second route for this school year - not a bad record considering how horrible employee attendance has been this year - I was dismayed to see the state of the seats on our school buses.

Why are students making holes in the seat covers?

Why are they making the holes bigger and bigger?

Why are they taking the foam padding out of the seats?

We need a cure for this problem! It's expensive and potentially dangerous. If there's no padding in a seat designed to cushion students in an accident, how can they be cushioned?

I do not believe the damage is done by students with evil intentions. But the students inflicting the damage are clearly not demonstrating respect for the bus either.

I think parents can help us with our bus seat damage problem.

Talk to students about their bus. Remind them that the bus is designed to be a safe environment; it's actually the second safest form of ground transportation (second only to elevators, incidentally). Ask them to respect the bus.

I've heard some interesting parent perspectives when I've sent bills for bus seat damage to students. Keep this one fact in mind: students do not have the right to damage bus seats because transportation in Monticello is funded by tax dollars!

Safe Driving!

Kari

Preliminary Route Schedules Ready

For the last several years, we've been collecting data from parents by sending home a form containing student information and asking parents to return the form. We made the necessary changes to our database and then sent postcards to each family in mid-August at considerable cost. And we've discovered that by the time school starts the information on the postcards is usually obsolete.

Last August we added two additional notifications, one at Open House and another on the first day of school. Why twice? Between Open House and the start of school we entered more than 2,700 changes to our database. Some of those changes were for custody reasons, others for daycare changes, and still others because families moved to new addresses.

We're trying something new this year. The last week of school we will send home next year's preliminary route information with next year's 1-12 students. (Kindergarten students will receive a letter when they get their introductory letters from their teachers.) We hope the new schedule will remind parents to contact us to make changes for the reasons noted in the last paragraph. We also hope to hear from the parents who have students moving to a new school and are now walkers at that school. We think it will be nice for them to get the heads-up about that significant change sooner rather than later, and it's easier for us to manage the phone calls when it's not quite as busy as it gets in August.

Because bus numbers may change (for capacity reasons) and time schedules change (students may be added or deleted or need to be in a different location, etc.), we plan to prepare and disperse actual route information at this year's Open Houses. Students in grades K-5 will find letters in their classrooms. Students in the Middle School will find letters with their Magic Minutes advisors. High School students will be able to check their information in alphabetical lists located in Main Street during Open House.

If we don't solve the problem and need to make significant changes to routes between Open House and the start of school, we will prepare additional letters and get them to teachers to disperse on the first day. We hope our new system precludes the need to send additional letters on the first day.

We do like to receive changes in some sort of written form. To make changes, email us at jami@hoglundtransportation.com, FAX us at 763.295.0055, write us at PO Box 70, Monticello MN 55362-0070, or click the "Contact Us" button on our website at http://www.hoglundtransportation.com/.

Safe Driving!
Kari

School Bus Drivers Needed

We've been working on routes and budgets for the next school year for about a month. This is the time of year when we think about what we didn't like about the current year or what we think we could improve next year.

Part of our process includes communicating with current drivers about their plans for the upcoming school year. Each driver has the opportunity to indicate whether he or she will return in the fall and a few other pieces of information (Want to keep your current bus? Current high school route? Current elementary route? Want to drive a midday route?).

This year we were most disappointed with driver attendance.

There are 174 days in the school year. That's less than half a year. We need drivers who can commit to driving 174 days.

Interested?

Stop in for a visit. We train our applicants to competency, arrange required testing, and fully qualify each driver, at no charge to the applicant.

In addition to the requisite safe driving practice, we ask only that each new employee commit to driving 174 days.

Safe Driving!
Kari

Stop. Stay Stopped.

We inhabit a world in which there are very few absolutes.

Even stop signs don't seem to always mean stop. Park near an intersection controlled by stop signs and you'll see what I mean. A frightening percentage of the traffic approaching the stop sign will roll past the stop sign, ignore stop lines painted on the ground, and if no vehicles are approaching continue without making a full stop.

Here's an absolute we insist upon maintaining.

When a school bus is stopped with its stop arm extended, stop. No questions asked. No arguing. No negotiating.

Stop.

See, we can protect kids when they're inside the bus. That yellow bus is a huge piece of equipment, much bigger and heavier than the average vehicle it meets. The student seating compartment rests several feet higher than the average vehicle on the road, keeping students above the point of direct impact in most collisions. The seats are high-backed, flexible, and well-padded, insulating students from most things.

The bright red stop sign coupled with amber and red warning lights and the well-enforced safety practices keep our students safe outside the bus.

The single variable over which we have the least amount of control is the approaching motorist who fails to honor our stop signs.

We had two stop arm violations yesterday, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

In the morning, the bus was stopped and students waited outside for the bus driver to signal them to approach the bus. Meanwhile, a woman driving in the neighborhood failed to stop for the extended stop arm. Her husband called today to ask us to rescind the report. We aren't allowed to do that. The law requires us to submit the report.

In the afternoon, a younger woman passed a school bus from the rear. She had a young man in the vehicle with her. They passed the bus on the right - the door side - just as students were preparing to exit the bus. We believe the inhabitants of the vehicle were high school students. We're not yet sure they realize how serious yesterday's incident was. Passing a school bus on the right, even when only the yellow lights are flashing, is a serious offense because it's so dangerous.

If I remember correctly, in Minnesota both drivers could be charged with gross misdeanors, punishable by up to $3,000 in fines, the loss of their drivers' licenses, and up to 30 days in jail. Whether or not they'll be charged that way and whether or not the punishment is imposed is up to the legal minds at the Wright County Courthouse.

It's not up to us - not the bus driver, the bus company, or school district administration - to decide when and if we'll submit a stop arm violation report or to decide how that report with be handled.

When we file a report, our great hope is not that people will get the maximum sentence when they violate a stop arm.

Our great hope is primarily that those violators will not harm one of our students. Second to that, we hope those violators take it seriously when the officer visits them and explains what they've done wrong and issues the ticket. We hope they spend the next weeks talking to family and friends about the incident, spreading the word that when a school bus stop arm is extended, there is no negotiating. There is no rolling through. There is no second-guessing or interpreting. There is only the absolute fact that all traffic must stop.

Stop.

Stay stopped.

Incidentally, it's probably just as well that we aren't in charge of issuing the punishment for violating stop arms. I've been behind the wheel of a school bus when students were outside and I didn't know whether oncoming traffic would stop or not. I believe our students' safety is worth the maximum penalty.

Safe Driving!

Kari

Check Those Mirrors Today!!

In an effort to spark extra careful attention to what's happening outside the bus during loading and unloading times, we're mandating mirror checks for our employees.

Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 111 regulates mirror adjustment. The diagram looks like this:

To help drivers best adjust their mirrors, we paint the ground and give them space to check their mirror adjustments.

This orange "c" section is for Type C school buses - the ones with "noses."

This yellow "f" section is for Type D school buses - the ones with a flat front.

Basically, drivers park their buses with the bumper at the front of the painted box. The dots on the ground correspond to the dots on the FMVSS 111 diagram.

With properly adjusted mirrors, drivers will be able to see each and every dot using one or more of the mirrors. Properly adjusted mirrors mean drivers have fewer blind spots and are more able to see students in the "danger zone" around the bus.

Though properly adjusted mirrors are critical, we know it is by far best to keep students in the driver's direct line of vision. We teach students to cross approximately ten feet in front of the bus after making eye contact with the bus driver and clearly seeing the safety signal ("Thumbs UP for Safety). We encourage students to return the signal as they cross, making them active participants in their own safety. With large group stops, we teach students to wait in a designated location until the bus leaves the area. We try to teach students not to run toward the bus at any time, but wait at the bus stop and walk in an orderly fashion toward the bus at the appropriate time.

In my experience, students are not often actively thinking about their own safety. As public safety stewards, it is our most sacred job to constantly and consistently remind them to be safe.

Safe Driving!

Kari

In the News... 6-Year Old Killed By Bus

Yesterday I was thinking about student safety outside the bus. You can read the blog post, "On Crossing the Street" from Monday, March 22, 11:08 am.

Not long after publishing my own thoughts about student safety and the high percentage of students hurt in the spring, we learned a young boy died yesterday. He was hit by his own bus, and his bus driver, according to news reports, is devastated. I imagine the entire community is devastated.

So am I.

We teach new drivers about student safety outside the school bus just like we teach students how to be safe using a booklet, "The Moment of Truth: School Bus Loading and Unloading Safety." Like most of our materials, the book is dated (the latest statistics it contains are for 1994.

There are fourteen practices and suggestions in the booklet:

1. Establish and enforce safe crossing procedures at each and every stop with each and every student. Key point: if a student fails to follow safe crossing procedures, teach them how.

2. Count students. Key point: if a driver loses count or gets confused about how many students were present, get up and look for them.

3. Assume traffic will fail to follow rules, laws, and best practices. Key point: a defensive attitude and posture keeps the most people safe and healthy.

4. Remain focused on those students outside the bus. Key point: learn to count to ten before looking into the rearview mirror when motion catches your attention; the students inside the bus are safe.

5. Pay attention to the statistics. Key point: again, statistics report important things; statistics do not predict. * 25% of student fatalities occur when a student is hit by his or her own bus * young children are most vulnerable, but middle school students come a close second * pm routes in the spring are most dangerous.

6. Drive a bus only once the mirrors are properly adjusted. Key point: mirror adjustment requires expert help; get it.

7. Maintain safe schedules. Key point: avoid rushing.

8. Understand safety. Key point: avoid desensitization caused by continuous performance of routine activities.

9. Use safety equipment correctly. Key point: if the bus is equipped with a crossing gate, DO NOT RELAX!! Too often students circle round the gate and walk toward the bus instead of continuing in a straight line.

10. Teach students to be safe. Key point: if students don't take their own safety seriously, it's more challenging to keep them safe.

11. Expect students to engage in unexpected and confusing behavior. Key point: drivers need to be familiar with each student's habits and watch for changes in behavior.

12. Practice middle loading when assigning seats. Key point: the safest seats (the ones with the most cushion) are in the middle of the bus.

13. Listen to what students say. Key point: they have a gut instinct too, and sometimes adults don't take them seriously.

14. Education begins with drivers and students, but doesn't stop there. Key point: educate the public.We add one practice to safe crossing practices: we teach and use the "Thumbs UP for safety" signal. I'd like to see all bus drivers and all students using it. Practical? No. I cannot imagine our seniors giving the driver this hand signal. We'll keep trying. Maybe if we keep working on it, our students will all be participating in the next decade.

Keep the community of Pine River in your thoughts and prayers. Their pain will not ease quickly.

Safe Driving...
Kari

On Crossing the Street

Statistics do not predict. They report. That's an important difference.

That said, spring school bus fatality statistics alarm me every year. The most common time for a school bus to hit one of its riders is in the spring.

There are all kinds of theories about why spring is so dangerous.

While it's important for us to know and appreciate those theories, we believe our energy is best spent teaching drivers and students to be safe outside the school bus.

Key to safe crossing? Visual contact between a bus driver and a student!

We teach our students to watch for the driver's "Thumbs UP." We teach our students to return the "Thumbs UP" so the driver knows the student is an active participant in his or her own safety.

During school bus safety training, we tell our kids the "Safe Crossing with Safety Sam" story. The story's a little bit lame and the pictures are very dated. We keep using it because it accomplishes our goal.

Here's the story:

We desperately new artwork.

Safe Driving!

Kari

Best EVER Compliment...

At Thursday's Kindergarten Round-Up, we received the BEST OF ALL COMPLIMENTS.

I was gathering forms and data and Important Stuff when a parent approached me and had this to say:

"I was going to skip the transportation portion of the night. I stayed for who knows what reason, and let me just say, I AM SO GLAD I DID. I was scared to send my child to school on the bus. And now I'm not. THANK YOU!"

Nice.

I care about your children.I care about YOU. I care about making YOU happy because your children are happy.

That's not always easy.It's also not always a place where people offer praise.

Last night it was both! Halleluiah

Safe Driving!
Kari

Interesting Fact #2,043

Did you know you can request a speed zone study?

We called the city about the intersection of CR 39 W and Chelsea Road because we have concerns about the increasing speed limit for west-bound traffic on CR 39 W and visibility for the north-bound Chelsea traffic.

There's something of a process to initiate a speed zone study, but it sounds like it's progressing.

I'm glad. The intersection makes me nervous enough to think about it regularly.

Safe Driving!
Kari