According to the American School Bus Council, an estimated 480,000 school buses carry 26 million children – more than half of America’s schoolchildren – each day, making school buses the largest form of mass transit in the U.S. and driver training a top priority for school districts. Our bus drivers have a great responsibility to keep our kids safe.
We know many drivers are not transporting students during this time with school closures, but this might be a good opportunity to address some of your drivers’ key training needs.
The National Association for Pupil Transportation (NAPT) conducted a survey about how prepared transportation staff feel about bullying on the school bus. Here are a few key statistics from that report:
The most requested additional training topics, from the survey results, were:
Cheryl Spittler, a school climate expert who has trained thousands of bus drivers in behavioral management, suggests three easy strategies school bus drivers can use to help maintain order on their bus:
Our SafeSchools Online Training System offers a suite of transportation-related courses. Staff can complete training on their own time, from any web-enabled device. Track group training as well with our Offline Training Tool!
We’ve partnered with the School Bus Safety Company (SBSC), the #1 provider of specialized school bus safety training, to deliver their expert-authored courses online through SafeSchools Training. Proven to reduce accidents by nearly 50%, these engaging courses include key practices that every bus driver should know to keep your students safe! Course categories include:
SafeSchools Training customers may purchase the School Bus Safety Company courses as an optional Course Library add-on to their training system. Not a SafeSchools Training customer yet? Purchase just the SBSC courses, delivered through our award-winning online training system.
We also offer SafeSchools Alert, our online tip reporting system that allows students, staff, and parents to confidentially report safety concerns to your administration 24/7/365 via mobile app, text, phone, email, and website.
For more information on how SafeSchools can help your transportation staff improve student safety on the school bus, contact us at 1-800-434-0154 or [email protected].