School Transportation Industry News from 2021
Notes from Governor Cuomo's COVID-19 Briefing from Monday, February 22nd Notes from Governor Cuomo's COVID-19 Briefing from Wednesday, February 17th
Notes from Governor Cuomo's COVID-19 Briefing from Monday, February 8th Notes from Governor Cuomo's COVID-19 Briefing from Friday, February 5th
Notes from NYS Budget Director Mujica's Q&A Briefing from January 18th POSTED 1/18 Notes from Governor Cuomo's COVID-19 Briefing from Friday, January 8th Vaccine phase 1B begins Monday, which includes school bus drivers! POSTED 1/7 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. POSTED 1/7 Notes from Governor Cuomo's COVID-19 Briefing from Thursday, January 7th POSTED 1/7 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. POSTED 1/6 Notes from Governor Cuomo's COVID-19 Briefing from Wednesday, January 6th POSTED 1/6 Notes from Governor Cuomo's COVID-19 Briefing from Tuesday, January 5th POSTED 1/5 Leonard Family Scholarship Now Accepting Applications for the 2021-2022 Academic Year Deadline to apply is March 1st! POSTED 1/5 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. POSTED 1/4 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. POSTED 1/4 NYSBCA's the Yellow Bus Newsletter - WINTER Issue POSTED 12/17/2020 |