Board of Education Members Superintendent

Maurice Hill, Chairman Charles G. Wilson, CPA, MBA

Mike Herndon, Vice Chairman Bulloch County Schools

Cheri Wagner 150 Williams Road, Suite A

Dr. LeVon Wilson Statesboro, GA 30458

Steve Hein 912.212.8500

Anshul Jain www.bulloch.k12.ga.us

Mike Sparks

Vernon Littles

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 20, 2014

Contact: Hayley Greene, Public Relations & Marketing Specialist

912.212.8512; 912.536.2827;

Three Reasons to Honor School Bus Staff

National Bus Safety Week & Bus Driver Appreciation Day

School systems across the country are celebrating National Bus Safety Week on October 20-24, and in Georgia, October 20 was School Bus Driver Appreciation Day, a time to honor the state’s pupil transportation staff, who transport more than one million children twice each day. In Bulloch County, there are three key reasons to recognize these employees’ accomplishments.

A Driving Force

With a fleet of 163 buses, the school system’s drivers, mechanics, monitors and other support personnel ensure that twice each day more than 5,100 students are delivered safely to and from school. Drivers travel more than 6,000 miles daily across more than 113 different routes. Drivers also travel an additional 52,000 miles annually for more than 1300 fieldtrips and athletic events, bringing the total annual miles traveled to more than 1.5 million miles.

Committed to Safety & Training

Buses today are equipped with more safety features than any other vehicles on the road, and before they are used to transport children for the first time, each must meet numerous state and federal safety requirements. The school system’s bus mechanics ensure buses remain road-ready. Every 20 days, they service each bus and perform general inspections.

All drivers receive rigorous, specialized training on a variety of topics before they take the wheel behind a big yellow bus.First and second-year drivers go through mandatory training on student management, student privacy, first aid, railroad crossings, bus loading/unloading, fire extinguisher use, backdoor locking/unlocking, bus mechanics, preparing a bus for inspection, driving range, and preparing a bus for end-of-year return.

All Bulloch’s drivers are required to test their driving skills on a standard bus range to keep skills sharp and help handle real-world, driving situations. They also must attend a three-hour state safety training session annually.

Drivers also take time to train students. Each August, they conduct their annual “Sparky” School Bus Safety Training for the entire district’s nearly 10,000 pre-kindergarten through twelfth-grade students. This is a nearly 30-year tradition that was started by Cathy Dixon, the district’s former transportation director, and coordinated today by Elizabeth Byrd, the school system’s bus safety coordinator.

The lessons teach children how to properly get on and off the bus, how to evacuate the bus in the event of a fire or accident, how to sit and use quiet voices on the bus, danger zones around a bus, and bus stop rules. Drivers also practice safe evacuations with students two times each year.

A Winning Record

Bulloch County’s drivers have a winning legacy when it comes to testing their skills against the state’s best bus drivers. Since 2002, they’ve finished as champion or runner-up five times in the Georgia Association of Pupil Transportation School Bus Road-e-o. Jimmy Futch was a two-time champion in 2007 and 2008, Linda Cartee and Joyce Newton were runners-up respectively in 2002 and 1989, and Gil Riggs was state champion in 2011. Riggs placed second in 2009, fourth in 2010, and fifth in 2012. He has also been a qualifier for the Annual School Bus Driver International Safety Competition.

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