As the NAPT Professional Development Series continues to grow and impact the pupil transportation industry, we want to see how it affects individual NAPT members. We are looking for individuals to showcase. Have you earned an NAPT Certification? How has your coursework and professional development contributed to advancing your career? We would truly like to hear your stories and experiences.

Share your story!

Please take a couple of moments to reflect on how NAPT and the PDS program, both online and at conferences or workshops, has helped you to achieve your personal and career goals. You can submit your story in paragraph form using the contact information below. We look forward to hearing from you!

 
     

YOLO Walk Safe Program Promotes Pedestrian Safety Among High School Students

by Andrew Metzger

The Montgomery County (MD) Department of Transportation YOLO Walk Safe program represents the culmination of four years of focused efforts to develop pedestrian safety awareness among high school students in Montgomery County. YOLO stands for “you only live once.” It is a program developed by students for students to help combat “distracted walking” caused by activities such as texting, playing handheld games, listening to music, or talking on the phone.

“We began working with one high school that was located in one of our high incidence areas in 2010,” said Nadji Kirby, Safe Routes to School Coordinator for the Montgomery County Department of Transportation. “We worked with the school administration to establish a pedestrian safety working group that included students, and we worked with those students to develop pedestrian safety awareness activities. Due to this success, we knew that some of the same strategies we used at this school could be used at other high schools.”

Sadly, it was in the midst of efforts to broaden the program that a Montgomery County high school student, Christina Morris Ward, was fatally struck while walking to school.

“At that point, our County Council felt this was a priority, so they wanted us to develop a specific high school pedestrian safety program,” Kirby said. “We started with the ‘Walk Your Way’ project in late October 2013. This project gave grants of up to $2,000 to any high school group that wanted to create, design, and implement their own pedestrian safety campaign. This generated the second part of the program, which is the YOLO toolkit. The toolkit was created to basically serve as an inspiration, motivator and idea generator for even more schools and student groups to get involved in developing their own pedestrian safety programs at their respective schools.”

The YOLO toolkit, which is available here, contains:

• A guidebook on developing and implementing a school pedestrian safety education program
• Ideas for events/education campaigns that could be conducted by a partnership of students, parents and PTAs
• A USB drive with digital resources, including web banners, electronic poster files, and a video public service announcement titled “Moment of Silence”
• Campaign posters
• Static clings for restroom mirrors
• Sample morning announcements
• Pledge banners
• A customizable letter/email for parents in English and Spanish
• A parent tip sheet in English and Spanish
• A social media plan, including graphics and pre-written tweets and posts
• Talking points for meetings or assemblies

“Currently, only public schools are included in the receipt of a toolkit,” Kirby said. “However, the great thing about our website is that anyone can access and utilize the posters, tweets, announcements, guidebook, etc. as they see fit for their school. I am hopeful that some private schools will utilize the resources; and if they need help thinking through ideas on doing activities or starting a pedestrian safety working group, we will be more than happy to help them do that.”

Kirby cited statistics which show that one in five high school students cross the street while engaging in distracted behavior. “In Montgomery County, for pedestrians at fault between 10 and 29 years of age, the age range found most at fault was 15 to 19, so this data supported our outreach efforts aimed at this age group,” she said.

In addition to making the YOLO toolkits available, the Montgomery County Department of Transportation also conducts pedestrian safety assemblies that include the County Police as well as Gwen Ward, the mother of Christina Morris Ward. “We will work one-on-one with high schools to help them plan and implement various pieces of the overall program,” Kirby said. “That may take the form of an assembly or a presentation for specific groups of high school students. Each school varies. We just hope that each school will do something to help make their staff and students really understand the dangers of the road and what they can do to help keep themselves safe.”

Patrick Willi, Product Development Manager for School Training Solutions, a division of Smart Horizons, learned about the YOLO Walk Safe program at the 2014 National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services (NASDPTS) Annual Conference, held November 9-12 in Kansas City, MO.

“I was extremely impressed with the YOLO Walk Safe campaign,” Willi said. “It is a well crafted, simple message that I was able to immediately identify. I think it is a message that should be taught across the country, especially as texting and smart phones continue to grow in accessibility and popularity.”

Andrew Metzger
Guest blogger
School Training Solutions

Although Spring is officially here, there is a chance that lingering winter weather is keeping you indoors. Take advantage of the situation and enroll in online NAPT Online Professional Development Series (PDS) classes.

NAPT PDS online classes are used across the U.S. for certification, recertification, inservice, and general professional development. Each course is self-paced, and can be completed when and where it is convenient, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

	•	Inservice Training – Everyone in the pupil transportation industry can benefit from quality inservice training and professional development. Each NAPT online class is offered with a school year designation. This means that each course is released each year for enrollment, completion, and credit. In the past, you could only take an online version and receive credit once.
	•	Recertification Requirements – Anyone who holds a NAPT Certification must be recertified every three years. NAPT PDS online courses can be used to earn up to 10 recertification points over the 3 years.
	•	Certification – NAPT offers a variety of certifications for Transportation Directors, Supervisors, Specialists, and Instructors. Online courses are available to anyone in the pupil transportation industry and ready for immediate enrollment.

 
Feel free to pass this information along to anyone who may be interested in school bus driver or pupil transportation training!

 

Online school bus driver training offered by the Oklahoma Association for Pupil Transportation (OAPT), in partnership with School Training Solutions (STS), is recognized by the Oklahoma Department of Education (OKDOE) as meeting the classroom requirement for school bus driver training certification. The interactive school bus driver training course was developed in collaboration with the OKDOE and includes state-specific topics designed for OK school bus drivers!

Online training eliminates the need for training-related travel expenses, frees up instructors for other duties, simplifies data tracking and reporting, and provides a consistent curriculum to all individuals enrolled in the course. Individuals learn at their own pace, when and where it is convenient.