Webinar: Student Reunification and Bus Safety — From Reactive to Proactive

00:00:05:19 – 00:00:36:00
Paul
Well, good morning, everybody. Thanks again. I appreciate you showing up for our webinar. I’m Paul Gandrud. I’m the national sales executive for Transport, and I’d like to spend a little time this morning just sharing a little bit about who are presenters are. I will let them eventually introduce themselves, but we’ve got some great panelists here that will share a lot of information about the student reunification and bus safety and trying to become more proactive with this.

00:00:36:03 – 00:01:01:02
Paul
We’ve got Jim French, who’s a presenter for the I love you guys Foundation. Ron Gann, who’s actually a transportation security inspector for TSA. I have a lot of surprising information about what TSA can do for you. And then also Jeff Baird, who’s a transportation director actually, and the customer of transport and in the Liberty School District and Liberty, Missouri.

00:01:01:05 – 00:01:35:22
Paul
Just a couple of housekeeping notes here that everybody will be muted, but there is an ask a question feature. So please feel free to ask questions. You know, anything that you might pop into your mind as you’re going through this. And then we will try to save some time at the end of this to answer a few of the questions and if we can’t get to answering all the questions, which we probably won’t, our presenters have agreed to answer all the questions that are pertaining to their presentation.

00:01:35:22 – 00:02:09:19
Paul
So so a little bit, just very quickly, who is Transportant and so we’re actually a fully integrated system that provides 21st century technology for school busses. We only work with school busses. We’re not in the trucking industry. We provide live video which is very unique in this market. GPS student tracking and also turn by turn directions.

00:02:09:21 – 00:02:38:22
Paul
So we’re one of the few companies out there that have the ability to do everything. And if do this, working with one technology, why we chose to become a partner in love with the I Love You Guys Foundation. This is a quote from Tom Oliver, who’s actually the executive director of the Wisconsin School Coordinator Safety Coordinators Association.

00:02:38:24 – 00:03:08:05
Paul
And it’s it’s kind of interesting that I have this quote because this is actually where I first ran into the I Love You Guys foundation. I was a had a booth at this conference. And Andy Arnold was one of the well-known presenters for the I Love You Guys foundation came up to me and said, you know, we get a lot of questions about, you know, we have a lot of information about how to keep our students safe while they’re in the buildings or we really don’t have anything to address.

00:03:08:05 – 00:03:31:11
Paul
What’s going on with this? The safety of our students are as much with the school busses. So as we started talking, we found out very quickly that our goals align very, very, very well, that we’re trying very hard to try to keep all of the students safe, whether it be in the building or also now in the school bus, which is equally as important.

00:03:31:13 – 00:03:41:21
Paul
I’m going to introduce our first presenter here. This is Ron Gann from the TSA. Ron, if you just like to introduce yourself and kind of tell me where you’re from and things.

00:03:41:23 – 00:04:12:01
Ron
Sure. Thanks, Paul. As Paul said, my name is Ron Gann. I’m the Transportation Security inspector and I work with the Transportation Security Administration. My job is specifically dealing with surface transportation and helping out in matters of security and ensuring that we’re safeguarding our our transportation on wheels hits the surface of the earth. We even go as far as dealing with boats.

00:04:12:02 – 00:04:35:09
Ron
I mean, working with the U.S. Coast Guard and dealing with the marina side of things. But I’ve got a pretty, pretty neat job, I’d like to call it, because I do have children as well and they’re involved in school. And so I take on this job with a bit of a passion because my parent, my kids are going to school and they’re transported by these busses.

00:04:35:09 – 00:04:58:07
Ron
And and so we dig in to school busses as well as trucks and along with mass transit, both the large and small transit. And so we we try to do our best to get out and spread the word about security programs and all that we can help out with training. I have basically two big roles with with TSA.

00:04:58:07 – 00:05:17:25
Ron
And and as you might figure that you would be aware of TSA with the blue uniforms out at the airport and might not even know that we exist as a surface program here. But we have an area of this mode of transports that we deal with in compliance for various regulations that are out there that Congress puts forth.

00:05:17:27 – 00:05:54:09
Ron
That is a kind of a very small portion of what we do in our surface area are my aviation counterparts tend to have a little bit more involvement there, especially since we had our events of 911 over 20 years ago. And and so we also have a cargo area of of a mode of transportation. But in our service area, we do a bit with our freight and passenger rail with some over the road bus companies that travel into our larger areas, such as Chicago, New York, L.A. and such.

00:05:54:11 – 00:06:21:04
Ron
And so we do have some regulations for those individuals. But but we do a lot of of going out and providing with these free no charge programs where we can provide training for you. And so that’s we do this nationwide. Our offices are not at every airport. But on one of those I don’t know if you have that screen there we have you can see here all over the nation.

00:06:21:06 – 00:06:44:28
Ron
I know it’s a little small for you and what you might be able to see, but on this map here, anything that’s marked with a blue diamond is where we have a surface transportation office. My office is based out of Omaha, Nebraska. We are responsible for Nebraska and Iowa and all this involved or transportation wise and going out and spreading the word.

00:06:45:01 – 00:07:10:13
Ron
All my counterparts in their offices are obviously responsible for other areas of their responsibility. So if you have an area there that is close to you that’s on that map, we certainly can get you information on how you can contact TSA to get some some training and some of the programs I’m going to talk about this morning and I’ll be able to help you out that that capacity or you can reach out to me.

00:07:10:13 – 00:07:29:00
Ron
Paul will have some information for you to contact me via email and we’ll I’ll be I don’t know who to contact. I’ll make certain to find out who it is and the various offices, offices throughout the United States. But that’s pretty much kind of a small but maybe large amount of information I have. And what I do for TSA.

00:07:29:02 – 00:07:42:18
Paul
So can you. The TSA First Observer program. I was very surprised to learn that you guys did that, that this is no cost to the school. Can you describe the TSA first observer program for us, please?

00:07:42:20 – 00:08:07:08
Ron
Absolutely. And that’s the key word. There is no cost to any of the schools that choose to opt to have us come out and do some risk mitigation training, essentially. So if you have a normal safety seminar or discussions or meetings to have with the drivers throughout your, we can come in and actually do some training there with the First Observer Plus program.

00:08:07:10 – 00:08:37:01
Ron
It is essentially a I would say, a bit of an exposure of the, you know, we’ve had for years for TSA see something say something campaign and this expands it a bit to where we talk about how to observe assess reports of situations that are going on in the everyday work of a of a bus driver. And so it’s about an hour long press presentation with video and various things to talk about terrorism and what they do.

00:08:37:03 – 00:09:00:14
Ron
So that is what the first Observer program does. We do have other programs that we do that we use to train for risk mitigation. In some ways, active shooter is one of the areas that we do come and do training for. We work in collaboration with the local law enforcement because they will be the responders or the first responders in those situations.

00:09:00:16 – 00:09:27:01
Ron
And TSA is just there to help you mitigate that risk and provide the training and provide the active shooter awareness in that as well as we have insider threat programs that we do training on and various other amount of training that we do with with improvised explosive devices. We have experts and professionals that do that to help drivers recognize what an explosive looks like if someone were to leave that on their bus.

00:09:27:04 – 00:09:50:07
Ron
And so that is one of the many programs we offer. We do offer. Paul, I’ll mentioned to everyone that we have the base assessment for security and for a security assessment. It actually is a program where we come in and we do an assessment on the security of the school and and once we go through that program, we come back and provide options for consideration to help them improve.

00:09:50:07 – 00:10:17:28
Ron
It’s again, no course, there’s no obligation, there’s no regulation, There’s no no, it’s all voluntary, basically. And so we come in and we do this, and after we’re finished with that involvement, if you choose to do so, there is a program through FEMA with our federal government that they do have done disaster grants that are available. With your involvement with TSA, you may apply for those grants.

00:10:17:28 – 00:10:40:13
Ron
And I’ve been told it’s not 100% accurate, but I’ve been told that about 90% of the people who applying for those grants generally get them to help them with security things such as putting up fences, installing security cameras, you name it, anything to help you in that security area. And so so that’s just a little bit of some of the things we do.

00:10:40:13 – 00:11:05:20
Ron
We do things the planning bags on busses to see if the bus drivers are doing their security checks, completely helping with tabletop exercises. We help develop security programs to develop a plan. And of course, again, with the risk mitigation activities that we can provide for the schools and every single thing that I’ve just mentioned to you is free of charge, No cost to the school we provide as a government foundation.

00:11:05:27 – 00:11:13:17
Ron
And and we work with your transportation director to accomplish all those items.

00:11:13:19 – 00:11:40:12
Paul
Yeah, that’s that’s really good information. And one of the questions I get asked a lot is, you know, is there funding available? So if you go through that TSA first observer program that FEMA does have a lot of money available. So another question for you around, how should this rule? Do the bus departments, assessors on security postures, how should they go about identifying their own security risk and what should they do to enhance their protections.

00:11:40:14 – 00:12:12:11
Ron
And that’s a great question, Paul, because, you know, I just mentioned about the base. Of course, you know, we’re a government. We have to have an acronym for everything. So but the base, it stands for base assessment for security enhancement. We have about roughly 120 security action item questions that we come in and do the interview with people such as the transportation director, human Resources, your mechanic, your your janitors.

00:12:12:13 – 00:12:50:23
Ron
We talk to everybody and get and ask these questions about how to best improve your security. And we based on that, take those answers and come back with an analysis based off of a national standard of how to improve those security items in that area. So this is a way that they can we can come in and help them with this where they we have these questions based off of that national standard to find out exactly where they stand is very likely in that interview, we’re going to find a lot of holes that we need to fill in order to make that program better security and just being able to do that.

00:12:50:23 – 00:13:17:06
Ron
So this is how we identify those risks and we’ll be able to come back with an executive summary report that you can provide to the superintendent or principal of the school and be able to show them. These are the areas that we need to improve in and this is why we need funding for that area and so forth to be able to help identify those risks, to hopefully be proactive again about the situation versus finding out later, Oops, we should have done something about that.

00:13:17:08 – 00:13:41:04
Ron
So it’s just, you know, taking the initiative to do better by going to this program called the Base, you asked about how they should identify there as well. I would say training. A lot of times the bus drivers and school systems, they have a lot of safety meetings. They have there’s maybe even a safety board or a safety director, and they will meet on a periodic basis of having safety meetings.

00:13:41:04 – 00:14:10:10
Ron
But a lot of times they don’t include a lot of security. And so it’s kind of it’d be good to identify maybe a security team that they can focus on those needed security awareness items, maybe even have exercises to identify the vulnerabilities that they might have and just be aware of industry standards as a security practice. If you’re networking with other school districts, both direct and indirect research to learn from what works and what doesn’t for the school system for other places.

00:14:10:16 – 00:14:34:22
Ron
And it’s just being proactive again, just getting in there and doing your best to mitigate that risk of anything that could happen to the transportation. The biggest thing, though, that I will leave you with all of this is making certain that you’re working in harmony with the with the school administrators, with the transportation side of things, because a lot of times schools will have a great setup and a plan for something such as active shooter.

00:14:34:24 – 00:15:00:08
Ron
But they normally don’t include the the bus drivers, the transportation side of things. And so and I’ll give you a quick, quick example. Just two weeks ago, we went over to a school in Iowa and we were there for a short time to do a base assessment with that school. And the school was Perry High School in Perry, Iowa.

00:15:00:10 – 00:15:24:22
Ron
And the very next morning they had their shooting. They had an actual shooter came in and they were they took the life of a small individual and just we just found out within the last 48 hours that the principal has passed away, too, because of that. And and so with that situation, we’re we’re able we’re going to go in and be able to help provide them some training.

00:15:24:24 – 00:15:43:27
Ron
But the biggest thing we found out that came through that was one of the bus drivers or the busses were late to school that morning. And on the news locally, it’s that they said to them, the kids said if the bus wasn’t late, we probably would have been a part of that shooting. And we found out that the only way the bus drivers had a way to communicate is through a cell phone.

00:15:44:00 – 00:15:57:27
Ron
And so we’re going to try to go in there and help them and give them some suggestions of improvement and hopefully better that situation. Hopefully, it never, ever happens again, obviously. But we’re hoping to help them improve.

00:15:58:01 – 00:16:05:28
Paul
And then what proactive measures can school bus drivers take to protect their busses from potential attacks?

00:16:06:02 – 00:16:30:23
Ron
Just routine checks, just being vigilant about their, you know, their bus. I know a lot of bus drivers take a lot of ownership with their with their busses. And so it’s just a matter of going through and making certain that when they’re doing their pre-check instructions, when they’re doing their post check inspections, you know, it’s important to make certain there’s no child behind or lifting any child left on the bus.

00:16:31:01 – 00:16:52:13
Ron
We’ll go through and make certain know of a potential suspicious items or bags left on that bus as well. The biggest thing is not be complacent in the job. I’ve told people throughout Iowa and Nebraska, out here in the Midwest, it’s very easy to get complacent in their job and just go with the routine that anything can happen anywhere.

00:16:52:15 – 00:17:11:03
Ron
And of course, we have the unfortunate event that happened in the middle of nowhere, basically in Perry, Iowa, just a couple of weeks ago, a park insecure areas with ample lighting and if possible, lock the bus every single time and make a stop from any type of foreigner getting on the bus that shouldn’t be there.

00:17:11:05 – 00:17:34:10
Paul
All right. So, Ron, thank you so much. I appreciate it. All that great information. I got to know Ronald a little bit in Iowa, and I was really surprised of what TSA provided. That was very surprising to me. So thank you. I appreciate you sharing that information. My pleasure. We’re going to have on who’s Jeff Baird, who’s our transportation director in Liberty, Missouri, and also current customer of transport.

00:17:34:14 – 00:17:39:26
Paul
So, Jeff, can you just introduce yourself quickly and we’ll get to the questions.

00:17:40:00 – 00:18:05:19
Jeff
Well, Paul, thanks for having me on. And I’ve had a career in operations management, and if I could categorize it in one word, it would be eclectic. I’ve been in retail, wholesale and small business distribution. I’ve distributed video games in the eighties and nineties, and then I took a natural career change to become a care pastor for a decade.

00:18:05:21 – 00:18:39:26
Jeff
And I think that’s a natural background for being a transportation director. So along the way, one thing’s been true. Every organization has to have an eye for safety and secure security. They have to go hand-in-hand. A safe bus is a secure bus, and a secure bus keeps student and staff safer. They can’t be one without other. I can tell you I experienced the first observer program.

00:18:39:28 – 00:19:19:18
Jeff
And let me give you a little bit of details about how it worked. To summarize our experience, we had a training session with drivers and they received insight into security threats on busses. The TSA brought in examples of what it might look like, how a backpack can turn into a bomb, and they gave the drivers awareness. Before the training, we might have had a few threats identified during Pre-trip, maybe three out of ten, and we planted ten suspicious items on busses on a surprise morning, unannounced to everyone, including me.

00:19:19:25 – 00:19:48:23
Jeff
It was truly a test. The instructors returned it for and planted ten bombs and the drivers identified seven. I do not believe we would have gotten close to that number had we not had the training, and it gave us an opportunity to make everyone aware and on their toes. So obviously it helped us with security, but it did more by focusing on one element of security.

00:19:48:25 – 00:20:15:27
Jeff
It drew employees into other details. It’s a mindset change that leads to a culture change. We probably did not do enough with security before that, and I can say that our organization has changed as a result of it. Each year we do intruder training. Our security staff tells the driver how to take control of the bus when someone tries to get on.

00:20:16:00 – 00:20:42:20
Jeff
You know, it’s the kind of training that you never need until you do. And three times in one day after we began that program, a man wandering neighborhoods tried to get on a bus, three different busses with students. Each time the drivers performed to their training, including as soon as they could get the door shut, pulling away and they got to a safe place and called dispatch.

00:20:42:23 – 00:21:05:09
Jeff
It’s the event that you’ll know you never hear about because there wasn’t an accident. And I believe that the TSA training goes a long way to keep us safe in an environment where sometimes we’re just trying to cover routes and be as safe as we can, but we can no longer call it the training. We’ll never use.

00:21:05:11 – 00:21:14:07
Paul
So how how does your district use the bus technology you have now to assure the protection and safety for students on the bus?

00:21:14:09 – 00:21:49:26
Jeff
Well, bus security is about speed and communication, and the communication has to be accurate. So the first thing that we use is the incident button that’s on our tablet, on the busses. If there’s a disturbance or a major event, the driver pushes the incident button. What that does is immediately sends a video to a video link to the control center back here and they can click on that and immediately be taken to the video of that experience.

00:21:49:28 – 00:22:18:21
Jeff
The bus security is about speed and communication and the incident buttons start to that. We take that a step further. If we have a safety or security issue with a student, we take that incident button and one of us reviews it. And before the student gets home, we’ve looked at the video sequence and what we do is I call the or someone calls the parents and say, just says I need your help.

00:22:18:23 – 00:22:48:23
Jeff
You know, Johnny’s not doing what he’s supposed to on the bus and this is what we need to do. Can you help with that? And without fail, because it’s personal and quick, the parents say, Yes, we will and we’re sorry it happened. If we react two weeks later, the parents have been told 20 versions of the story by their child and it’s not as impactful.

00:22:48:23 – 00:23:15:18
Jeff
It’s gone a long way to help us get better safety on the bus. We call it the seven program because we want to get to the parents 7 minutes after the incident happened on the bus. The second thing that we do is we have a C and say program. We let the drivers see a sequence that they didn’t know what happened, but they can visually see what happened.

00:23:15:20 – 00:23:39:16
Jeff
The only guideline there is is that they don’t write the student up. We’re not going to go hunting for four issues, but they’ll take a screenshot and take it on the bus tomorrow and get the student before he sits down in the afternoon and and go over with him and ask for his help and correcting the behavior. We found that to be really good timing.

00:23:39:18 – 00:24:02:21
Jeff
With with live video and audio, we can be at the scene of an accident instantly. We recently had one where a car hit and ran one of our school busses and jolted it pretty hard and the the detail we could get of the cameras looking out the window told us to make the style and the color of the car.

00:24:02:23 – 00:24:39:20
Jeff
The local police knew which direction it was going and they set up interference down the road and within 12 minutes the hit and run driver was apprehended. So all of these things go a long way to helping us be safe and secure. The other thing that relates to security is that when we put this in and we had the parent app lost, child calls were virtually eliminated because whether the parent gets the information from the app or whether they call into dispatch, we know exactly where and when every child got on and off the bus.

00:24:39:22 – 00:24:51:19
Jeff
And that goes a long way to building understanding of what, what, what the child’s status is.

00:24:51:21 – 00:24:58:21
Paul
Good information. So kind of a fun question. How is the student behavior on the bus now?

00:24:58:23 – 00:25:22:13
Jeff
Well, it’s about like when I went to school in 1974. They just find different ways to do it. I will say we have more major events because back in the day, Harvey, my bus driver, if there was a disturbance, you got off the bus and he quit. He put out a cigaret and he would tell us, I’ll see you in a week.

00:25:22:16 – 00:25:53:13
Jeff
It’s a little bit more complex now, but the biggest issue that we have is parents saying, I need proof and if we call them immediately, the I need proof goes away and it becomes personal with me asking them for help. My parents found out when I told them I needed a ride to school tomorrow and that was effective to.

00:25:53:16 – 00:25:56:14
Paul
Show the technology. Go ahead. I’m sorry.

00:25:56:17 – 00:26:27:18
Jeff
No, that’s good. I think the biggest thing that parents are concerned with, Paul, are where’s my kid? Did they have an accident? Did they have an incident? Are they being taken care of? And the bus cop is helps us to know where and when the child gets off the bus. But here’s here’s the other thing. During an accident, we have to have bus rosters, and we need to account for the kids in real time.

00:26:27:21 – 00:26:52:06
Jeff
There was an incident where a guy stole a bus and buried or went underground with the kids and held them hostage. And it took an hour and a half for that district to find out where the kids were. And we know immediately who’s on who got off, where they got off. So within minutes, we can account for every student in a security situation.

00:26:52:08 – 00:27:19:08
Jeff
The other thing is, is that we got the local SWAT team does exercises on our lot every year, and I wait around and go out with them and basically tell them about our technol technology system. And basically they are aware that any time there’s an incident, we’re like 2 minutes from their station, we can have it in their hands without them having to learn it in 2 minutes.

00:27:19:11 – 00:27:50:08
Jeff
We’ve tested also doing a video cast of of the technology happening and we can give them like live shots into the bus. So we find that to be a creative way to do it. So we have the other the other piece, Paul, is that we have 250 administrators and secretaries and employees that have access to our director’s dashboard.

00:27:50:10 – 00:28:16:00
Jeff
And what that did is it build confidence because they can go in and look at any route any time and ask us any questions about that. That’s that’s been a fantastic way to get partnerships and the belief that we’re doing what we can. We encourage them to do that in the beginning. Other transportation director said, You’re crazy. You’re going to get complaints.

00:28:16:02 – 00:28:27:02
Jeff
And my answer to that was, we’re going to get complaints anyway, and we need the students to be safe. So if they want to tell us what we’re not doing, we welcome that.

00:28:27:04 – 00:28:47:06
Paul
Yeah, it’s it is interesting because there’s an account of ours in Iowa, and they brought our proposal to the board and the superintendent made a comment. I ordered a pizza last night. I know where my pizza was. I knew exactly what was going to be at my door, but I didn’t know where all my kids were. So technology is is is quite amazing.

00:28:47:07 – 00:29:00:25
Paul
So thank you, Jeff. I appreciate your time and efforts with this. Next up, we do have Jim French, who’s a presenter for I Love You Guy based out of Michigan. Jim, can you introduce yourself a little bit?

00:29:00:27 – 00:29:27:19
Jim
Yeah. Thanks, Paul. Appreciate it. My name is Jim French. I’m an instructor explorer for the I Love You Guys foundation. And my background is I was in education for 33 years. The last 22 to 24 of those years, I was either a high school assistant principal or principal. And so I can feel what Jeff is talking about as, you know, what’s in manage those issues that come up.

00:29:27:19 – 00:29:52:14
Jim
Many of those come to you and you’re trying to sort them out and figure them out. So that technology tool seems like a great resource to kind of get to the heart of the issue, be able to address it, and then also be able to effectively communicate it. So it’s really cool information to hear from Jeff, but I’m really excited to be here today and thanks for inviting me and just looking forward to sharing a little bit of insight.

00:29:52:17 – 00:30:06:01
Paul
Yeah. So for you, can you give this a some of us I know are very familiar with, I love you guys, but some of us are not. So can you give us just a quick overview of what the standard reunification method is.

00:30:06:03 – 00:30:27:03
Jim
Of the standard reunification method? We call it SRM. You know, because acronyms are key to everybody’s work here to make it easy. But we have some focal areas in the standard reunification method. First, we talk about reunification occurring in different locations, so we recommend that you start to look at these four elements when it comes to a reunification.

00:30:27:03 – 00:30:54:04
Jim
First of all, buildings, you have to be ready to do a reunification at your own site. You know, when there’s a nonemergency non-criminal situation, could be a power outage, could be something, a gas leak in the area. But you have to be ready to run a reunification out of your own site for such an emergency. We also recommend that districts and buildings start to have a walking distance from the site some place that they could go if they need to get offsite in a rather quick, expedient manner.

00:30:54:10 – 00:31:15:00
Jim
Could be like a gas leak onsite where you just have to get them away from that site for safety reasons. But we recommend that you have a walking site as well. Third type, we also talk about a transport site. This would be for a non criminal activity, but a scene where we just we can’t walk away far enough or we can’t get to that location effectively using walking.

00:31:15:00 – 00:31:37:27
Jim
So we need to have transport, we need to have support to get our kids and our staff out of that building and into another location. And the fourth recommendation we have, which is really kind of a marker of a criminal situation, we call it a unified command reunification. That’s where something criminals at the site. We need to transport students and staff away from that site to a new reunification site at a predetermined location.

00:31:38:01 – 00:31:57:20
Jim
And so we talk about SRM. We start first with where are we going to do this reunification? And those are four examples that we like to try and have schools and buildings. Think about the other key part of our standard reunification method is there’s an accountability. You know, in schools, we’re accountable for all of our students, we’re accountable for all of our staff and employees.

00:31:57:22 – 00:32:17:22
Jim
So we have to be accountable at the site, but we also have to be accountable at the reunification site. So with an offsite reunification, you know, we’re there till the end, You know, just getting kids to the site at the beginning for our transportation folks is not going to be the end. We have to have your help throughout that process and we’re going to need you at the end because we may need your help.

00:32:17:22 – 00:32:43:14
Jim
Getting staff will, because maybe their cars are unacceptable and unable to be attained. So we need transportation, folks. We need our drivers. We need their support throughout this reunification, not just to drop off kids, but throughout that process, because this is new, this is different. So you are critical to that reunification process. Also, a big part of this, when we talk about reunification, communication is the key.

00:32:43:16 – 00:33:02:11
Jim
And the other thing that’s really critical is you have to have a plan. So that’s why we talk about those four sites and we talk about having those in your plan and then walking through what that plan will look like when you get to your reunification site. So there are also a ton of resources that are available to kind of help designate roles, responsibilities.

00:33:02:11 – 00:33:33:24
Jim
And we have what we call a reunification card. They’re all free available, free as a download. I love you guys talk. And again, so free, we don’t even ask for an email. We just want these things to be available to our communities, to our schools, to anybody that wants to access them. So on our Web site, our videos handouts and Stream handbook, even some presentation that we give to our schools and to our folks there, they’re available, downloadable and usable for your organization.

00:33:33:28 – 00:33:54:20
Jim
So again, those things are available free of charge. Also, I want to talk a little bit about when we do reunification of some questions that I think we’ve got to start to pose to our transportation directors. You know, in this day and age, obviously we might be limited in resources. We might not have as many drivers as we need.

00:33:54:22 – 00:34:19:27
Jim
We might be lacking in busses, etc.. So what we talk about a lot from the foundation side is what are your relationships, What are your relationships that you’re building, cultivating and making. And so we really talk about are you making those relationships with your neighbors, either in the neighboring towns, neighboring areas, so that when these elements come up, you can lean on each other?

00:34:20:00 – 00:34:39:28
Jim
Another thing that we talk about is do you have a relationship with any of your county or city transport? You know, you’re in you municipal transport systems because they can also be a support for you when these things come up. So again, we really talk a lot about relationships and trying to build those amongst the many facets of our community to help us in these situations.

00:34:40:01 – 00:35:01:05
Jim
Last thing about CRM that I think is really important is communication. Again, I can’t hit that hard enough. And for transportation directors, I think it’s an important thing to start to think about is how do you communicate with your drivers when it’s lunchtime? Do you have a system in place to maybe pull them in an emergency when they might be off the clock or not even in the area?

00:35:01:07 – 00:35:29:05
Jim
Do you have a good communication in place for your drivers that are maybe on the road already and an emergency happens? Do you have that capability and what are your plans to handle a reunification maybe when you are already on a route taking kids? How do you handle that and what’s your plan? And so I think that the transport and solutions and especially hearing from what Jeff said is that it sounds like the transport solutions can really assist your organizations with these situations arise.

00:35:29:07 – 00:35:44:07
Jim
So communication that is crucial to anything that we do with the CRM. And so it’s really cool to see how that connection goes with transport and your tech and some of the things we see with the standard reunification method.

00:35:44:09 – 00:35:58:18
Paul
So Jim, this is one of the questions you had planned. But can you talk just a little bit about the you know, you have this standard reunification that the plan how do you practice it? How do districts actually run through that physically?

00:35:58:20 – 00:36:21:21
Jim
Well, we suggest that you start small. We have some trainings that we do with districts that are two day events where we do a lot of training, tabletop and discussion pieces, and then we do actual iterations where we have them walk through different roles, roles as a reunification team, role as a parent and role as a student so that they can see how this interacts.

00:36:21:23 – 00:36:39:16
Jim
We suggest you start small. If I’m a building, take just your staff, have a group of them put together and make our group the reunification team, make a group parents and make a group students. You can start with 30 people. Take ten and each and start to just practice the process. And so all of that information can walk you through it.

00:36:39:16 – 00:36:54:00
Jim
There’s a handbook on our website which will help you, or if you feel that this is too much to tackle, we also are available to help support districts in that process as well. But you can start small right in your building level and model the process for yourself.

00:36:54:02 – 00:37:10:05
Paul
I think that’s so important because when something does happen and everybody starts panicking, it’s really nice to have practice that. How do you start the reunification focused within the district safety plan, and how do you include the Transportation Department?

00:37:10:07 – 00:37:31:16
Jim
Well, I think one of the things that is critical here is that they have to be at the table having these conversations. You know, when you start talking about a district safety, safe transportation, a key component in any of these facets. And so it’s important that they understand that. And I’m going to get away from SRP, just our SRM just a little bit and talk about our standard response protocol, because I think that’s critical.

00:37:31:20 – 00:37:55:27
Jim
That’s a part of your district safety plan. So we have five actions. We talk about there’s hold secure down, evacuate and shelter those five elements like your bus drivers know how your district safety plan is going to ask you to respond in any given situation. We can have all five of those and all hazards approach and we can address how we would handle it with each of those five actions.

00:37:56:00 – 00:38:19:26
Jim
But the bus drivers know your transportation involved in your bus drivers of what happens when those things come up. So I’m going to give you a just a little example. I’ll talk about a secure let’s say a building is in a secure because danger is around. That building is somewhere in the immediate area of the building. So right now, the district has put that school or the law enforcement has put that school into what we call secure.

00:38:20:00 – 00:38:43:20
Jim
That means no one in, no one out what and how our bus driver is going to respond if they’re in the middle of dropping off kids. And I go back to Ron’s example, say if that bus was late, you know, luckily those kids weren’t involved in that situation, but they were put into a lockdown. Do those drivers know that they’re in a lockdown and know not to let those kids off the bus?

00:38:43:23 – 00:39:06:23
Jim
So a district safety plan is really good if it’s communicated and if everybody understands how to handle those situations. So that secure discussion is going back to, again, communication. We have the ability to talk to our drivers and let them know what’s happening at the building at a moment’s notice, help avert a further dangerous situation. So I guess I ask some questions about that.

00:39:06:23 – 00:39:32:05
Jim
You know, do you know what your district reunification sites are knowing your safety, But do you know where you’re going to be taking them? What other support might be necessary based on that situation? Do you know how to get them there? Do you have plans figured out? So these are important things. I think that we have to have transportation directors having conversations with the district, but we also have to have that translated back down to each and every driver.

00:39:32:07 – 00:39:46:06
Jim
And that’s an important part of this process, is that that communication and that training, similar to what Ron’s talking about, the training that’s available, these things need to also be a point of emphasis with our drivers and that handles our student.

00:39:46:09 – 00:39:48:18
Jeff
As a whole. If I could.

00:39:48:18 – 00:39:49:28
Jim
Interjects.

00:39:50:01 – 00:39:52:05
Paul
Yeah, go right ahead. Yeah, sorry.

00:39:52:07 – 00:40:19:20
Jeff
I got two things that I want to share. One is a way to train our people to respond to security threat is that when we have a lockdown in any school, regardless of the level of concern, we send enough busses to stage around the corner so that they can go in and pick up the kids on short notice because we don’t take a chance on something happening and then us being called in because we’ve now wasted time.

00:40:19:22 – 00:40:41:11
Jeff
I think that helps our drivers to be aware of what’s going on. The other thing is, is that we did our TSA, we’re involved with them in the process. And one of the things their audit of our facility told us is that the fence needed repairs in certain areas and we had had that on our list for years.

00:40:41:11 – 00:41:02:13
Jeff
And when they made that recommendation, we took it to the school board. And as Jim said, we gave visibility upward and the fence got repaired in like two weeks and so sometimes that outside influence goes a long way to getting attention within the district.

00:41:02:15 – 00:41:06:09
Jim
Awesome. That’s exactly right. Jeff.

00:41:06:12 – 00:41:30:16
Paul
I know, Jim, you talked a little bit about this, but you know, the connections with the standard reunification method and the transportation director, but also the drivers, because that’s the part they are part time, most of them, you know. And how do you make sure they’re all on the same page, you know, with the rest of the district and the police and, you know, all the other people that are involved and.

00:41:30:19 – 00:41:57:11
Jim
You know, and that’s one of the things that I think is also a key part to discuss. You know, when you start talking about driver’s availability, priorities, you know, when these situations occur, you have to have those conversations or those situations arrive, as Jeff stated, I mean, putting busses there in the proximity of the school, if a school goes into lockdown in preparation for the movement of kids, that’s key because you have a plan.

00:41:57:14 – 00:42:18:07
Jim
And so what I’m going to recommend is that all of your all of our districts in attendance at least start to develop your plans and then the steps necessary to accomplish that plan. They must happen prior to a situation to enable to respond quickly and efficiently. And so it’s critical that we start to have those conversations with our drivers and within our departments.

00:42:18:09 – 00:42:44:14
Jim
Second thing is, I think we also have to start thinking about, you know, we deal with this in schools when we talk about the different action steps that we have. We have our staff, but we have to be ready for our let’s be honest, we have substitutes in place. Same thing happens within our bus drivers. We have sub bus drivers that come in, may not be full time employees, but are these plans discussed and are those folks prepared for these situations that might come up?

00:42:44:16 – 00:43:12:27
Jim
Some things to thinking about, especially as we talk about diminishing resource and people when we have these situations come up in our districts or finding ways to become creative, to handle staffing and other issues. So don’t forget to include in that training a preparation for these types of situations. The other thing that I would really emphasize is that that whatever the district safety plan and the actions that are labeled in there, we have our five actions.

00:43:13:00 – 00:43:37:21
Jim
But you have to start incorporating that training into your bus drivers. They have to understand what those terms mean and what the action steps are going to be. Also, I think it’s critical that your district transportation person be a key person at the table any time you’re having discussions, trainings, conversations, even if you do walkthroughs or simulations, have them be a part of it.

00:43:37:21 – 00:43:58:24
Jim
They have to see the process. They have to see the elements that are involved to help them become a part of the solution. And I think it’s critical that we have them at the table. The other thing that I want to say as a thank you to all of our transportation folks and bus drivers, is that this was something that I lived firsthand.

00:43:58:26 – 00:44:24:04
Jim
I remember a kid’s very first experience when they get on that bus. Is that trip that they come to school. You are the start to their school day. And I want to say thank you for making that the best part of their day and a great start to their day, because without that start to their day, everything else tends to fall apart if they have a bad experience, start today on a negative note.

00:44:24:06 – 00:44:45:20
Jim
So I want to say thank you to all of you out there that do that work because you’re a big part of making sure their kids are successful. And have a great day. Thank you. From the I love you guys foundation for your works to make this happen and to ensure their kids are safe on the road and under your care now.

00:44:45:26 – 00:45:05:28
Paul
Thank you, Jim. I appreciate you saying that because, you know, I’m around a lot of different states and around a lot of transportation directors, an assistant and then bus drivers. It’s a difficult job. I mean, it is really difficult. And what those folks do on a daily basis is is really, really good. So we appreciate that. So thanks again.

00:45:06:06 – 00:45:21:21
Paul
We did have one question post, and that question actually is for Mr. Gann. So, Ron, question for you. The question was, is that type of training available for private schools as well?

00:45:21:24 – 00:45:42:14
Ron
Absolutely. We do come in. We have some local schools in the Des Moines, Iowa area. I’m just speaking of a personal experience, but and I think I can speak for that of all others. It doesn’t matter whether it’s private or public. It is just just if you need the help, we’re we’re there to provide it for you.

00:45:42:17 – 00:46:05:17
Paul
Okay. So I highly recommend that you take advantage of the TSA because there is a lot of things that they do and so just for information purposes, one, I want to say thank you to everybody that showed up and also a huge thank you to our three panelists that put up with me as this is the first time our company has done this.

00:46:05:20 – 00:46:31:18
Paul
So anyways, I do really appreciate your patience and working with us. But also if you have any interest in contacting transport and and I have a copy of this or a link to this recording will go out to every participant and also every participant that maybe didn’t show up today. So if you have any questions or want to contact us, here’s our contact information and kind of the areas we cover.

00:46:31:18 – 00:46:54:06
Paul
So. So with that, I want to say thank you. And with that link too, if if you know somebody that you think would be benefit, benefit from the information that was shared here, please feel free to send that link to them and you can reach out to us at any point in time and get any more information that you want.

00:46:54:06 – 00:47:17:01
Paul
And like I said, I will be sharing contact information for all three of our panelists. So if you want to reach out to them personally, feel free and I’m sure that they will certainly get back to you as quickly as they possibly can. So with that, I want to say thank you again and I hope all of you guys have a great day and please let us know if there’s anything we can help you with.