The New York School Bus Contractors Association is an organization comprising of more than one hundred school transportation service companies with the primary mission of promoting safe, reliable and cost-effective student transportation in New York State.
This Week's Industry Highlights & Reminders
- Notes from Governor Cuomo's COVID-19 Briefinf from Friday, January 8th Vaccine phase 1B begins Monday, which includes school bus drivers!
- Have you signed up to receive the COVID-19 vaccine? Click here to learn more, check your eligibility and get on the list for phase 1B.
- Notes from Governor Cuomo's COVID-19 Briefing from Thursday, January 7th
- FMCSA offers a one-hour training course on inspecting high-voltage electric drive commercial motor vehicles (CMVs) High voltage systems are not currently inspected as part of the North American Standard (NAS) inspection procedures for CMVs. NAS inspection procedures do not include review of any high-voltage component. However, high-voltage systems can still pose serious, even life-threatening risks. This training is meant to raise awareness on the risks associated with high voltage systems and enable CMV inspectors to conduct supplemental inspections on high-voltage components. While designed for inspectors, this course could be useful to owners, operators, or anyone else who may be exposed to these vehicles.
- Notes from Governor Cuomo's COVID-19 Briefing from Wednesday, January 6th
- Notes from Governor Cuomo's COVID-19 Briefing from Tuesday, January 5th
- Leonard Family Scholarship Now Accepting Applications for the 2021-2022 Academic Year Deadline to apply is March 1st!
- NYSBCA Applauds Schumer, Gillibrand and the New York Congressional Delegation for Securing Critical Emergency Federal Relief for the School Bus Industry
- ACIP Recommends Frontline Essential Workers for COVID-19 Vaccine The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted on recommendations for Phase 1b and Phase 2 of the COVID-19 vaccine. December 20, 2020, ACIP issued another round of recommendations. This include Phase 1b that encompassed people of all ages with comorbid and underlying conditions that put them at significantly higher risk, as well as older adults living in congregate or overcrowded settings. According to ACIP, “Frontline Essential Workers are workers who are in sectors essential to the functioning of society and are at substantially higher risk of exposure to SARS-CoV-2.” Of particular interest to school bus contractors is the ACIP recommendation that highlights “Education (teachers, support staff, daycare)” in the Phase 1b allocation of the vaccine. NSTA interprets this recommendation to include school bus drivers in addition to administrative personnel. Supporting this interpretation, it should be noted that the ACIP recommendations specifically refer to an earlier advisory list made by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) that outlined “essential workers” in August 2020. We suggest that school bus contractors directly contact school districts with whom they service, in order to understand how deployment of the vaccine will be distributed, and be involved in that process.
- Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse: Employers must conduct annual queries by January 5, 2021 Employers can log in to their Clearinghouse accounts and access their Query History page (under My Dashboard > Queries) to verify which drivers have been queried and when each completed query was conducted. FMCSA has developed several Clearinghouse factsheets, brochures, and instructional guides, customized by user type. Visit the Learning Center to access these resources.
- School Bus Fast Facts!
NYSBCA Partners with BUSING on the LOOKOUT
Human traffickers are counting on people not paying attention and not knowing the signs to look for or the questions to ask. If every bus driver and employee could be trained to identify the signs of human trafficking and how to report it effectively, imagine how many victims could be recovered and, potentially, how many traffickers could be arrested!
- CLICK HERE for free training for your next Safety Meeting. Watch the training video, download the wallet card, brochures and posters.
- CLICK HERE for a new toolkit.
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Why partner with NYSBCA? Click on the image to the left to view our promotional video |