School buses are safe — a lifetime reward

Each day in the Mat-Su Borough School District, school buses roll down the Palmer-Wasilla Highway, up the Parks Highway and into many neighborhoods. As you see the wheels rolling down your road, you may wonder, “How safe are school buses?” Knowing that school bus safety involves more than the bus or the bus ride, let’s take a look at several safety factors.

As the district observes School Bus Driver Appreciation Week (April 29 to May 3), I want to share some school bus safety facts and tips. Keep in mind that all bus drivers are professional drivers and the buses undergo regular and routine maintenance and performance checks. This year, First Student bought 96 new buses. Every six months, all buses are inspected — 93 percent of First Student buses passed on first inspection. The other 7 percent passed upon re-inspection.

Additionally, security cameras allow for the district to monitor behaviors on the bus of both the drivers and students. Bus rider rules are shared with families at the beginning of each new school year and posted on the district’s website for easy reference anytime. These rules help ensure that a student’s ride to school is safe. Using district resources in teaching positive behaviors, bus expectations beyond the rules have been provided to all drivers and posted on buses. Some of the expectations include:

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Be safe and be responsible

• Remain in assigned seat facing forward and treat everyone with respect.

• Keep hands, feet and objects to yourself and out of the aisle; use polite language.

• Use voice level two while riding the bus; report any harassment to the bus driver, parent or teacher as soon as possible.

• Maintain silence at railroad crossings; no eating or drinking on the bus.

• Mat-Su school district requires assigned seating on all buses.

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From the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, it has been learned that school buses are designed to be safer than passenger vehicles in avoiding crashes and preventing injury

• Today’s school buses are built with safety in mind.

• They are tougher, cleaner and more diligently maintained than ever before.

• School bus drivers are required to receive special security and medical training, and undergo regular drug and alcohol testing to provide a safe ride for your child.

• School bus traffic laws are strictly enforced.

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It’s a fact that school buses are the safest mode of transportation for getting children back and forth to school.

• Students are about 50 times more likely to arrive at school safely if they take the bus than if they drive themselves or ride with friends.

• Students are also safer riding the bus than being driven by a parent or adult. All drivers are cautioned and urged to be aware of sharing the roads with school buses, especially during the morning and afternoon hours when home to school routes occur or students are making the return routes. Some of the related driver dangers include:

• Aggressive driving — this includes speeding, tailgating, making frequent lane changes and failure to pay attention when driving.

• Distracted driving — the most common distracted driving habits are cellphone use or texting; one text or call could wreck it all.

• Impaired driving — celebrations lead to driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs and as recently as 2010, it was reported that one person dies every 51 minutes in alcohol-impaired crashes.

How much do you know about school bus transportation in the MSBSD? The MSBSD contracts with three companies for pupil transportation — First Student, Bunker & Bunker and Glacier View.

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Daily pupil transportation

MSBSD First Student

Regular education routes 107

Special needs routes 44

Work-study routes 4

Full time/permanent

drivers, monitors

and attendants 151

Substitute drivers 15

Average daily mileage 18,000+

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In addition to the First Student contractor that serves the core area of Palmer and Wasilla schools, Bunker & Bunker serves the Upper Susitna Valley schools, including Willow Elementary, Susitna Valley Jr./Sr. High School, Talkeetna Elementary and Trapper Creek Elementary. Bunker & Bunker has 14 drivers and three substitutes. Glacier View Bus services the Glacier View School community with two buses, two permanent drivers and two substitute drivers. All totaled, the MSBSD has 171 buses on the road every day, traveling more than 3 million miles per year.

Added to the daily routes are athletic team travel, school field trips and other chartered buses. In school year 2011-12, there were 1,109 other field trips for Mat-Su schools and 643 athletic trips. This year to date, there have been 776 field trips and 546 athletic trips. Chartered bus trips account for 20 to 25 trips annually.

What about the safety factors in Mat-Su? Pupil transportation supervisor Chris Remick reports that of the 17,000 students enrolled in Mat-Su schools, about 7,895 ride the school bus to school and home, or slightly less than half of our student population. Remick also tracks accidents and attributing factors. There have been 34 total collisions this school year; half of those when the bus driver was not at fault. The two most common factors for bus accidents in which the driver is not at fault in Mat-Su are buses being rear-ended and moose/caribou collisions. In tracking the injuries resulting from accidents this year, Remick finds that there were no reported student injuries in any of the accidents until last week’s rear-end collision of a stopped bus on Knik-Goose Bay Road that resulted in five students being transported to Mat-Su Regional Medical Center, most sustaining whiplash-like conditions.

In observing School Bus Driver Appreciation Week, we are reminded that school bus drivers are trained professionals who are entrusted with the safety and wellbeing of our important resource, our children. For parents, community members and Realtors helping residents settle in Mat-Su, the district has a bus route lookup tool available at http://tinyurl.com/cd8oblm. This helps in a school boundary search as well. When an address is entered, the home school is shown along with the bus routes and bus numbers available.

For more information about MSBSD pupil transportation, contact 373-2287 or the Public Information Office at 746-9251.

Deena M. Paramo has been Mat-Su Borough School District superintendent since 2011.