Have you ever thought about what rules and regulations are involved in managing the Special Needs bus? How does the Special Needs bus help each kid? What are the procedures involved with getting them onto the bus? What kind of restraining devices do they use to keep these kids in their seats? Is your Special Needs bus up to date on the equipment that they need and are required to have to assist each kid? All these questions can be answered by the bus driver, Brenda Marshell, and the bus monitor, Dawn Scrivner, of the Special Ed bus in Rankin County.
Not every kid can ride the regular bus. Some kids have a condition or an injury that requires them to have special help. The regular bus picks up kids that do not need this extra help and take them to school in large groupings. It does not have the time to assist each kid onto the bus and off the bus individually and get them all to school in time. To take care of this problem, a smaller bus has been designed to carry only a small handful of passengers. This will allow them to take care of each kid and their needs individually, helping them onto the bus and off the bus and getting them to school on time.
To understand how these procedures work and how they are performed, you must first know the rules that the Special Ed bus abides by. With every special needs bus comes a set of special rules and regulations that differ from the rules and regulations on the regular bus. These special rules are the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) or the Individualized Education Program (IEP). These rules are guidelines for the Special Ed bus to follow in order to provide the best service and care for each of these students. You can view some of the rules of IDEA at cde.ca.gov and pediatrics.aappublications.org. If you are a parent with a kid who is riding the Special Ed bus, you can learn more about your IEP at adayinourshoes.com.
Safety procedures for loading and unloading special needs students.
Brenda Marshell is the bus driver on the Special Needs bus for Rankin County. As the driver, she is in charge of getting these kids to school on time and back home safely. The bus driver knows all of the services that her bus provides for the Special Needs students and the equipment that her bus is equipped with to help restrain these children safely in their seats and successfully bring them onto and off the bus without any trouble. She provides transportation to students for however long that they may need it. According to Marshell, her bus is equipped with flashing lights and a stop sign to let people know that they are loading kids onto the bus. The bus also comes with a lift that is used to raise a kid with a wheelchair onto the bus. Once they are on the bus, the bus monitor straps down the wheelchair so that is does not move while the bus is driving and then seatbelts the child into the seat as a safety precaution. The restraining devices that her bus uses are regular seatbelts for kids who do not use a wheelchair or a car seat, tie down for a wheelchair plus seatbelt, and 5-point harness seatbelts for smaller kids.
Along with the equipment, there is also a bus monitor on each bus to aid the students that need help climbing onto the bus. Dawn Scrivner is the bus monitor on the Special Needs bus for Rankin County. Along with attending to the lift and tying down the wheelchair to the bus, she helps some of the children get on the bus and assists all of them with their seatbelts. While the bus is active she keeps an eye on the kids and make sure they stay seated and buckled up to prevent any injury. “The monitor also assists the kids with unloading the bus and making sure they have their book bags as well as loading the wheelchair on the lift to lower the child to the ground,” said Scrivner. Once they arrive at the school, she hands the kids over to their teacher or an assistant to insure that they get to their classroom safely.
If you have any questions about transportation with kids with special needs that have not been answered in this article, you can find some at friendshipcircle.org.
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Brittany, this is a really good story! I’ve personally never thought about the needs of a special needs bus but it seems like you have a special place in your heart for that sort of thing which says a lot about you and shows through your writing! That is really neat about the need for harnesses for kids in a wheelchairs as it is definitely a need. The video of how to evacuate the bus is very informative and the picture of bus driver Brenda Marshell is so cute.
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Brittany, this is an awesome story to cover. I think people should be more aware of all bus drivers, especially the kind hearted people that drive a special needs bus. My mother is a bus driver as well, so I know what kind of person it takes to do that job. I believe they deserve so much more credit than they receive. Learning about the rules and regulations on a special needs bus was very interesting and I am so glad you did this story!
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I really liked learning about special needs buses after reading this story. I’m grateful that there are people who want put kids with special needs first and give them the attention that they need. I think this story is very insightful and important for people to understand, especially people that work for a school.
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I love this story! In the past, I have worked with special needs children, and I am so glad you are spreading awareness of a challenge that many people do not think about. The video of them evacuating the bus is really cool. Your story is informative and shows the passion you have for this topic. I am so glad to see the steps that are being taken to protect children with special needs!
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