News & Insights

As school transportation contractors begin to settle in for the 2024-2025 school year, many are faced with new challenges that were not present in the previous school year. Among these challenges may be your school district requesting that you provide transportation for a student residing in another school district that is much further from your current district, which could mean crossing state lines to pick up the student. As transportation contractors know, students that live far from school c...

As you may have heard, a proposal has been made by the Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”) to reschedule marijuana from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act to Schedule III on the basis that marijuana has a currently accepted medical use and does not have the same level of abuse potential or level of physical or psychological dependence as other Schedule I drugs, consistent with the Department of Health and Human Services views on marijuana. The DEA filed a No...

School bus contractors must assure their drivers obtain clearances, including that their employees have Pennsylvania State Police (“PSP”) Background Checks performed.  Multiple laws dictate when and how often a driver must complete a PSP background check and it can get confusing. However, contractors should know that drivers only need to obtain a pre-employment background and renew it every two (2) years if they are performing Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (“PUC”) runs in vehicles t...

School bus contractors are required to comply with many laws and regulations to ensure legal compliance for their operations. Federal Motor Carrier laws and regulations and state Department of Transportation regulations are normally at the forefront of the minds of contractors. However, other laws that apply to the operations of contractors but are not necessarily transportation-related often get overlooked. One such law is the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which many contractors must comply with w...

Often, school bus contractors, repair facilities, and school bus OEMs and resellers may find themselves in a situation where they have an empty school bus that needs to be moved, but do not have a driver with a P endorsement readily available to drive. Recently, this issue has been tackled by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (“FMCSA”), so continue reading for an overview of what the law currently requires, and what updates may be on the way.

Planning routes and choosing stops for school buses and school vehicles is not an easy task. Stops can vary greatly depending on geographic area – some students may live on or near roads that require pickup or discharge on the road, yet others may require a pickup or discharge off the road. While school transportation contractors typically develop routes and stops in conjunction with their partnering school district, there are statutory and regulatory limitations, and safety considerations, tha...

In January 2024, New York Governor Kathy Hochul directed the state Department of Motor Vehicles to implement the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (“FMCSA”) Under the Hood (“UTH”) CDL Testing Exemption, in an effort to enhance school bus driver recruiting. This initiative is also known as the “School Bus Only CDL” because it allows school bus operators to simplify the CDL training process for candidates who are obtaining their CDL for the purpose of driving a “School Bus Only...