School Transportation

School transportation is the transportation of students to and from school, especially the daily transportation of minor children. About 25 million American children depend on the school bus as their primary means of school transportation, though there are transportation issues faced by boarding schools (for which transportation is less than daily) and universities, where students reside on campus and need transportation across campus or from campus to various local destinations. Such busing is nearly always zero-fare, and in many cases, bus drivers are familiar with the students on their route and no ID or pass is required.

School transportation includes bus transportation, which itself includes the use by schools of an existing bus transit service, as well as the maintenance and dispatch of a dedicated school bus fleet. Students also may arrive by foot or bicycle, be driven to school by car by parents or others, or drive themselves once they reach driving age.

Transportation policy needs to address the basic need of getting students to school, as well as how the school will handle the impact of unusual events on transportation, such as delayed openings or early closings due to weather; the transportation of students from the school to other destinations, such as on field trips; the transportation of students who remain on campus for after-school activities or because of after-school detention hours; the transportation of student athletes (and spectators) to away games; and the transportation of students to sanctioned events for student groups, such as debates or academic competitions.

A transportation policy must also encompass the handling of exceptions to whatever the transportation norm is for the school. In a school in which students are picked up at home and transported to school by bus, for instance, policy would address the handling of students who want to walk, bicycle, or drive to and from school instead; students who want to take the bus to a friend's home after school; the handling of traffic caused by parents picking up or dropping off children in lieu of using the bus; and the various legal and liability issues brought up by transportation policy and the responsibilities of the school to the minors in its care.

In North America, it is common for public schools to use fleets of dedicated school buses painted National School Bus Glossy Yellow, a paint color developed in 1939 specifically for this purpose. The color is designed to be easily noticed by drivers in their peripheral vision and rearview mirrors, and to stand out in traffic. It also makes the bus easily identifiable by young children. The visibility of school buses is important not only for safety purposes—because the bus makes frequent stops, it is important for drivers to be aware of its presence—but also because a number of traffic laws privilege the school bus and require certain behaviors of drivers.

[Page 1209]In almost every state, for instance, drivers (regardless of lane or direction of traffic) must stop when a school bus is loading or unloading passengers. This shifts the burden of safety from the children to the drivers, essentially stopping traffic until children are either safely on the bus or have moved away from the street. Often a school bus will be equipped with a foldout double-faced stop sign (called a stop signal arm) reminding drivers of this, although the law is binding regardless. Other warning devices may include flashing lights.

...