Hollander feels that a national clearinghouse for school bus drivers would be especially helpful for instances when a driver is fired because of inappropriate actions with a student even though he or she may not have been arrested for it or formally charged.
“We run into school police not being what I would call as vigilant as they should be in such actions. Usually a transportation department has to really force school police to take action and call in the local authorities. I’ve seen that many times,” she says. “So, let’s say that a person was never arrested, but was terminated. In a clearinghouse, you would report ‘termination for inappropriate conduct’ and future employers would have that information through the clearinghouse – you’re not going to find it on an FBI report.”
Hollander says that establishing a national clearinghouse for school bus drivers is something that she would like to see the National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services work on.
Quigley suggests that a national standard could be developed by and agreed upon through the National Association for Pupil Transportation.
“Once a school bus operator finished all training to this national standard, we could pass on this training information and employment data to other transportation directors in other school systems/states,” he says. “Local directors could still have their own operational verification checks.”
Pete Japikse, director of pupil transportation at the Ohio Department of Education, says another possible solution that could help provide more protection when drivers move between states would be to consolidate state conviction records with federal conviction records.
“This would allow all employers to run just one federal background check,” he says, “to ensure that a driver is suitable for employment.”
States’ background check standards and procedures
As can be expected, states have different standards and procedures for bus driver background checks, and different specifications on what will disqualify an applicant from obtaining the position. Here are some specifics:
Ohio. State pupil transportation director Pete Japikse says that Ohio’s process for school bus driver background checks involves three activities:
- Pre-employment state and federal background checks are performed. A list of convictions – which includes murder, weapons and drugs crimes, and violent offenses – must be checked, and anyone with one of these convictions is not eligible to work with students in Ohio.
- A new federal background check is performed every six years once the driver is employed.
- All drivers are checked nightly against the arrest and criminal activity records of the state’s Bureau of Criminal Identification. This step was added in 2008.
“Drivers arrested for any of the identified crimes are immediately disqualified from operating a school transportation vehicle during the pendency of the charges,” Japikse explains.
Although it is not considered part of the background check process, all school bus drivers’ driving records are required to be checked at least twice per school year. They can have no more than six points on their records, no more than two serious violations in 24 months, no railroad track violations in the last 12 months and no DUI offenses in the last six years.
Utah. Last year, the state Board of Education approved new standards to require all new school bus drivers to undergo FBI background checks and submit fingerprints to the state’s Bureau of Criminal Identification. Additional background checks are required every five years, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.
The new standards also require school districts to review bus drivers’ personal driving records at least twice a year (previously, they only had to check them once a year).
Launi Schmutz of Washington County School District says that with the exception of performing the additional background checks every five years, her operation adhered to these regulations before they went into effect last year. Her operation will now perform the additional background checks every five years, and she believes it will help in ensuring that the most well qualified people are employed at her operation.
Washington. In addition to obtaining a background check from the FBI and the Washington State Patrol prior to hiring a school bus driver applicant, districts are required to get a copy of employees’ driving records annually.
State director Allan Jones says that Washington’s database of authorized school bus drivers is linked with the state Department of Licensing’s driving record database. The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) is notified whenever any action is taken on a school bus driver’s driving record, and OSPI can then notify the school district in the event that the driver may not have been forthcoming about the incident.
