School Transportation: Getting Students Home Safely With Kim Rentner

Tyler Podcast Episode 20, Transcript

Our Tyler Technologies podcast explores a wide range of complex, timely, and important issues facing communities and the public sector. Expect approachable tech talk mixed with insights from subject matter experts and a bit of fun. Host and Content Marketing Director Jeff Harrell – and other guest hosts – highlights the people, places, and technology making a difference. Give us listen today and subscribe.

Episode Summary

It is no secret schools are facing lots of challenges, especially in the last year with the pandemic. What are some of the unique challenges school transportation is facing? Getting students safely from point A to point B is more challenging than you think. Here to help us navigate this issue is Kim Rentner. Kim is an Industry Engagement Consultant here at Tyler Technologies, and she works with Transportation Directors, Business Managers and Superintendents to find solutions that are the best fit for their unique situations. Kim has spent 23 years in K-12 transportation. She has served in various roles such as Northern Regional Director for the Illinois Association for Pupil Transportation, Safety Officer, Third Party Tester and Director of Transportation. She is an official NAPT (Nation Association for Pupil Transportation) instructor. Kim is passionate about student safety and loves sharing that passion with others. She’s the perfect person to help us understand school transportation issues.

Transcript

Kim Rentner: The thing about K-12 and about a bus route is this: it's not just from point A to point B, the quickest way. That's where your map in your phone or the Garmin in your car will take you, it's going to take you the quickest way. For K-12, we don't go the quickest way, we go the safest way.

Jeff Harrell: From Tyler Technologies, it's the Tyler Tech podcast, where we talk about issues facing communities today and highlight the people, places, and technology making a difference. I'm your host, Jeff Harrell, I'm the Director of Content Marketing here at Tyler, and I'm so glad that you've joined me. Well, it's no secret that schools are facing lots of challenges, especially during this pandemic, but what are some of the unique challenges that school transportation is facing? And getting students safely from point A to point B is much more challenging than certainly I realized. Here to help us navigate this issue, pun intended, is Kim Rentner. Kim is an Industry Engagement Consultant here at Tyler Technologies, and she works with transportation directors, business managers, and superintendents to find solutions that are the best fit for their unique situations. Kim has spent 23 years in K-12 transportation and she has served in various roles, such as northern regional director for the Illinois Association for Pupil Transportation, safety officer, third party tester, and director of transportation. She is an official NAPT instructor, that's National Association for Pupil Transportation, and she's very passionate about student safety and loves sharing that passion with others. She's the perfect person to help us understand the school transportation issues. So without further ado, here's my conversation with Kim Rentner.

Jeff Harrell: Well, Kim, thanks so much for joining us.

Kim Rentner: Well, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here!

Jeff Harrell: And I think my first question is, what is an industry engagement consultant?

Kim Rentner: Oh, that is a long title, isn't it?

Jeff Harrell: It is. I almost messed it up!

Kim Rentner: Yeah, me too. Me too, all the time. Basically I work in the transportation side of the house here for Tyler Technologies, K-12 transportation specifically. And because of my background in K-12 transportation, that is really how I came to be in this role, which is so exciting actually. I just absolutely love what I do, what I get to do. I am really a resource for the team here. That's how I like to see my role, a resource for anything that is a transportation need for K-12, special needs, when it comes to regulations, compliance, things of that nature. So I really am a resource to the entire team on the transportation side of the house.

Challenges of School Transportation

Jeff Harrell: And Kim, I know schools are facing a lot of challenges right now. What are some of the unique challenges that school transportation is facing that maybe other parts of the school education in K-12 is not?

Kim Rentner: That's a great question because not only now, but always, it's a very different type of industry. We are transporting students, and unlike airlines or some other forms of transportation, we don't have the luxury of canceling flights. We have to get them to school and get them home. So transportation is a very different entity because you can plan, but then there's going to be things that happen every day because we're dealing with humans. And so it's a very exciting place actually, to be a part of. It almost has an emergency room atmosphere is what I like to describe, if no one's ever worked in transportation, because there's a lot going on that is reactive. Of course there's a lot that's proactive, definitely. And so, today though, I would say the challenge, which really remains the same always, is to keep the level of safety and service, to keep upping your level of safety and service, always, for the students you provide that service for. But you also have to maintain a budget, you also answer to the public for any dollar spent. So things can be tricky. We want to also give our employees really the best tools they can to do their jobs, to continue to increase that level of safety and service. So lots of challenges, but I would say if I had to sum it up, it would really be focused on that. Not only now, but always.

Jeff Harrell: And I have four kids had sent them to school at some point in time. And I think safety was certainly something you think about when you're sending your kids off. Is there a governing body that really focuses on school transportation safety?

Kim Rentner: Governing is probably an interesting word because I'm going to talk today about the NTSB. And the reason that I point that out, I'm actually going to read this right off of their website, it is important.

Jeff Harrell: Oh, great.

Kim Rentner: But the NTSB is the National Transportation Safety Board, and it was established in 1967 in order to conduct independent investigations of all civil aviation accidents in the U.S., but also major accidents in any other modes of transportation. It's not part of the Department of Transportation nor organizationally affiliated with any of DoT's modal agencies, including federal aviation. The Safety Board itself has no regulatory or enforcement powers. I think that's really the important sentence there. So what they do is they investigate when there is a major accident, and the reason that it's formulated this way is to ensure that the Safety Board's investigation focuses only on improving transportation safety so that can remain their focus. The Board's analysis of factual information and its determination of probable cause, by the way, actually cannot be entered as evidence in a court of law. So basically this investigation process, if you will, is not about placing blame, it's about, how can we find out if we need to improve in places? So the NTSB is highly respected within our industry, and whenever there is an accident or something that happens and they do an investigation, there are other national entities that are of great support, NASDPTS, which is the State Directors of Pupil Transportation, NAPT, National Association for Pupil Transportation, and NSTA, that would be the contractor's association. So everybody is focused on safety. When the safety board does these investigations, they're then going to give their findings of the facts and they're going to give recommendations. So our other state and national entities are going to take those recommendations very seriously because we're all on the same team, we all have the same goal, which is to always improve safety.

Kim Rentner: I know that was kind of a long explanation, but that's why I really felt it important. Because when we say governs, I don't want anybody to think they're making laws or something of like of that nature, it's a little bit different.

Jeff Harrell: Let's zero in on those recommendations that you just talked about. Are there some current recommendations from the NTSB that are important?

Kim Rentner: There are. There's so much going on of course with the pandemic. I was really glad to come talk today about this, because as transportation folks, we've got to keep our eye on everything and this is a great way to share such important information. There was an NTSB recommendation that came out after evaluating a crash, some of those, I'll talk about. The first one, minimize the use of school bus stops. Now, the reason that I really want to talk about that, so you said you're a parent, do your kiddos ride the bus?

Jeff Harrell: They did. Actually two are out of college, thank goodness. I've stopped paying for that. One is in college and one is now driving himself. So I'm past that phase, but I remember it very well.

Kim Rentner: But you've been there?

Jeff Harrell: I've been there.

Kim Rentner: Yeah, absolutely. So as a parent, and certainly even myself, before I worked in transportation, I had no idea. There are so many things I had no idea about. So minimizing the use of school bus stops, the reason I think that's important is because many times we might get a call in the department that says, "Hey, can you just add this bus stop closer to our home?" That sounds reasonable, right?

Jeff Harrell: Sure.

Kim Rentner: Most people don't realize that it's actually creating risk. Every time we put a bus stop in place, not only does it cost money, but it really creates a risk of children entering and being near a roadway, entering or exiting the vehicle, on the staircase, there are all kinds of things, so we really want to minimize the use of school bus stops. I think that a lot of people would find that interesting that don't work in transportation, because they think, "Eh, what's the big deal? Just make another stop."

Jeff Harrell: Yeah, because kids don't want to walk too far, like, just make a stop right in front of my house, how about that?

Kim Rentner: Yes. Wouldn't that be nice? Absolutely. And sometimes there are, certainly, but it's just an interesting thing to think about. Some of the other recommendations are to evaluate the safety of a school bus route and stops, and that's a second step. Because I think it's first important to point out that we don't just say, "Yep, this can be a school bus stop," there are actually criteria that the professionals need to follow in order to deem a stop safe to begin with, and then those bus stops and routes need to be evaluated every so often because things change, the road changes. Have you ever driven and there's a bridge, and there's a number on top of that bridge, and it says the height of the bridge?

Jeff Harrell: Yeah.

Kim Rentner: Well, when we train CDL drivers, we let them know, that may not always be reality. And you would think, why? Well, is there snow on the ground? Has it been paved over from the time they measured that? So lots of things change on our roadways, and so that is what forces us to constantly be evaluating our stops and routes.

Transportation Education

Jeff Harrell: And Kim, it sounds like education is very important. How do people in the transportation industry get that training and get that education?

Kim Rentner: Yes, absolutely. Training is so important, really for every role in transportation. Probably the first place that I would direct people is to the NAPT, that's the National Association for Pupil Transportation, and they actually offer professional development courses and it is just a wonderful thing. Even if you just want to take a few or a transportation 101, or maybe you want to become nationally certified. I actually get excited about it because I teach some of the classes for NAPT and have taken them over the years and they're just so valuable. Whatever the training happens to be, I think the important thing is that there needs to be official training, and then we need to document that training. So I may have designated a person within my operation to evaluate bus stops, but what training have I offered them to do so? That's important. We're not doing much good if we just say, "Yeah, go ahead and do it," and then we don't give them training or criteria. So we want to make sure that people are completing training, they're getting the proper training on how to evaluate the risks throughout the routes and stops, and that we're recording that has happened.

Jeff Harrell: And I was going to ask you, I know the training's important, but what about the ability to track training? Why is that so important in the transportation industry?

Kim Rentner: Absolutely. And I'm sure through many industries, K-12, all the different departments, tracking and documenting is so important for so many things, specifically for training. I would say we answer to the public working in K-12 transportation, and so as a parent advocating for my child, I may want to know, why was this stop put here? Or if I called the department and I said I have a concern, who's doing something about it? Is it tracked? The public absolutely has a right to know how we go through our processes, and typically in transportation departments we always want to be transparent to the public, so it works very well. So really just documenting those things. And of course we hope that nothing ever goes to litigation, but if it were to, that's definitely probably something that's going to be asked, where's the documentation that the proper training was done and who did it, and when? Was it 20 years ago, or was it within a more reasonable timeframe?

Jeff Harrell: I'll be back with my conversation with Kim Rentner in just a moment. If you're looking for more content on school transportation, I highly recommend the Tyler Tech Resource Center. Just go to tylertech.com and click on resources at the top of the page. You'll find lots of great content on a variety of very important public sector issues. You can search and filter to find just what you need, and new content is added daily. I think you'll find the content there very, very helpful. Now, back to my conversation with Kim Rentner. So it sounds like bus stops are certainly very important. And so when a transportation professional is evaluating a bus stop, is there a certain criteria that they should be looking at?

Kim Rentner: Absolutely. There's lots of criteria that they have to take into consideration because there are so many things that vary right throughout the country. So many variables, I guess, throughout the roadways of our country. I'm not going to talk about those specific criteria, but what I'm going to say is that there definitely is, and you should know about the local ones. We need to be aware of state and federal criteria for picking these things out. And a stop really is four corners, so we've got to say, what's going on with each of these points? Are all four of them safe? Maybe one of them is not. So it really gets broken down to a lot of factors. And some of the other factors too, as you can imagine, you're in a different state than I am, possibly there are different criteria for what allows someone to be eligible for busing so we have to take that into consideration. My biggest recommendation is to know what your local recommendations are, state, national, and reach out and get that education, talk to other directors about the training program and make sure that you're streamlining it and that you're consistent.

Jeff Harrell: If an operation wanted further help in doing that and streamlining it and documenting, evaluating, are there resources out there that will help them?

Kim Rentner: Absolutely. Like any other industry, we all memorize lots of initials, so I'm throwing all these initials at you, I'm so sorry. But feel free wherever you are listening to this podcast, if you're able to comment and you say, "Hey, I want to get some info from you, Kim," we will reach out to you. So don't ever be shy to do that. NAPT is National Association for Pupil Transportation, NASDPTS is the National Association for State Directors. And so when we talk about that, remember that you most likely have a state director of pupil transportation, so you could reach out to your state director. They are always there for exactly this, to help and talk about things that are more pertinent to your locality. The NSTA has invaluable resources, so there's a lot of them out there, but definitely look up your state, reach out to those folks. A lot of times, local directors will also formulate their own meetings to get together to share ideas and information, so reach out to them. And within your school district, you want to reach out to maybe the person you report to, such as the superintendent or the business administrator, whatever is the most appropriate, and just say, "Are there any directives that you have or have had prior that you want to pass on to me?" All of that is good. We want to keep that open communication.

Technology in Transportation

Jeff Harrell: Kim, in this podcast, we talk about people, places, and technology making a difference out in communities, and we're Tyler Technologies. So I'm interested to know how technology has helped in this area of school transportation, especially now I think with COVID and the things that are happening, how has technology really helped?

Kim Rentner: I get excited about talking about this, because admittedly, prior to working for Tyler Technologies, I was someone who routed by hand and didn't have any software, I didn't have GPS, I didn't have cameras, I didn't have any technology. So I was somebody who I guess you could say fought the system a little bit, but like anything else, I'm sure my parents would even tell you, I have to learn it on my own, what the value is. So I'm your biggest advocate for anybody out there who's like, "Why do I need to do this?" The biggest thing is, we can't always take your local knowledge and expect everybody else to know that. So from a safety aspect, if we can take your local knowledge and your talent, we can never replace it, but if we can put that information into a place that allows you to have a day off as a director or a family event, then that helps increase that level of safety. Because we need to evaluate things, we need to document so many things, software really streamlines that process. Transportation directors and trainers, they need to get onto some more important things with all of this other wonderful knowledge they have in working with the student, so why not have some software to make that easier? To document things, get it in there and take a little bit of time.

Kim Rentner: And storing, most of us don't have the room to store all that paperwork anymore. So this is a great place to store things should we need to have it out and look back at something. But really, how can you assess or evaluate not only routes or stops, but really the operation, if you can't record what's happening today, what happened yesterday, and do comparisons? So it lets you do that. It's really a big circle back to what we talked about in the beginning, the challenge is always, how do I increase my level of safety and service? Well, one of the ways I can do that definitely is by having software to record this information. And then of course we have hardware, and there are so many great things today that I go, "Man, I wish they had this when I was a bus driver!" We have onboard navigation, we have GPS. Certainly there are cameras on the buses, and all of these things really help the driver. I'll tell you what, being a substitute driver is a scary thing, especially if you're not personally familiar with the neighborhood, and we want the students to be safe, so it's a big liability. So to actually be able to have onboard navigation that's successful, it's huge, it really is.

Jeff Harrell: And Kim, I've had navigation in my vehicles for quite a while. Why is that fairly new to the transportation industry?

Kim Rentner: Oh, great question. Yeah, in the K-12 transportation industry, it's new too. I've definitely been asked that many times and I still will be, many more times, because we have them on our phones, we've had Garmins in our car, if we remember those.

Jeff Harrell: Yeah.

Kim Rentner: So we're going, "Where has this been?" Well, the thing about K-12, and about a bus route is this: it's not just from point A to point B, the quickest way. That's where your map in your phone or the Garmin in your car is going to take you, the quickest way. For K-12, we don't go the quickest way, we go the safest way. And a lot of times, at bus stops, we also have to have our buses approach on the right side, we want to do that whenever possible for safety. So there's a lot of factors that have to be built in. So before now and before Tyler Technologies has come out with onboard navigation, those things can only bring me from point A to point B. We really need it to be more intelligent for the K-12 transportation, we need it to direct our drivers in the fashion as if the dispatcher's talking in their ear. And so if you can imagine, if you were a driver, you made a human mistake and you missed a stop and you need to get back to it, you really can't use that map in your phone because, is it going to keep the integrity of the right side only stop? Most likely not. So that's why that took a while to come out to the market, because there's a lot of intelligence that had to be built in. And I'll tell you, you can probably hear, I get really excited talking about onboard navigation because it's a game changer.

Jeff Harrell: Well, this is great, Kim. And I know we're we're in a pandemic, and that has brought certain challenges and changes. How has technology actually helped during this time of the pandemic with K-12 transportation?

Kim Rentner: So if you think about what we were talking about earlier with the NTSB, something happens, there's a crash and they go investigate it, and then we say, "How can we do things better?" So use that mindset for the pandemic: this is something none of us have dealt with. We don't want to do it again. But it's forced us to make some changes, like everybody else. And when it comes to transportation, of course there are a lot of the things that we talk about. With sanitizing the buses, now we want to log when have we sanitized them and what are we using? There's training that goes along with that for all of our employees. So that's one aspect, but definitely, we have to change the plan. So students, a lot of them are coming to school and have very different schedules than they have before. We have remote learning, but maybe they come in a couple times a week, and then how are we doing that? So we used to formulate routes based on the geography, you'd look at a map and you'd say, "I'm going to put together a route in this area." That may not always be the case anymore, because we might want to keep the same students in the same homeroom together all day, and that includes the bus. Well, now that has nothing to do with the geography, so very different. So technology can help transportation departments in doing that. How do we do that quickly, efficiently, but with safety always as number one, and remembering all these safety rules? When you have the intelligence built into the technology, it's going to remember all of those things, it's going to lessen those risk factors for you.

Kim Rentner: It has been invaluable. And seating charts are more important than ever. Having intelligence that goes with it so I'm not just handing you a blank seating chart, but, for example, our products have intelligence that say, "I want to have help putting this together, I want the first student on to walk to the back seat because then they're not walking past each other." So we watch everything, we watch that social distancing. What about an unplanned student? Student ridership is really more important than ever. Constituents of a transportation department have expectations of technology. And so they go, "Hey, if I can see the public transportation bus and what time that's coming, I want to see what time my school bus is coming." So we want to meet those expectations and technology helps us do that, and with the student ridership, parents may also want to see, did my student make it on the bus? Maybe I'm a parent that's got to be at work earlier than when they leave, that happens too, and I want to see, did they get on the bus safely? It's a wonderful safety factor there. But really answering to the public is what has pushed the technology, and it's so exciting.

Jeff Harrell: Yeah. As a parent, you just see the bus appear and you don't realize all the things that go into having that bus appear at the right time at the right place and all the challenges that the pandemic has brought on as well, so thanks for sharing that. Kim, is there anything else you'd like to share today with our listeners?

Kim Rentner: Well, I hope you'll have me back, because it is an exciting industry to talk about. Hug your transportation professional. Well, I guess we can't hug. We've got to social distance.

Jeff Harrell: Give them a virtual hug, six feet away.

Kim Rentner: Virtual hug. Thank you, transportation professionals. And for my transportation professionals that are listening, I'd like to thank you, because I know what a tough job you all do, and it's so appreciated by many.

Jeff Harrell: And Kim, if people wanted to connect with you, what's the best way for them to do that?

Kim Rentner: You can email me at Kim.Rentner@tylertech.com. You can certainly find me on LinkedIn, super easy, just look up my name and you'll find me on LinkedIn in there. If you want to comment wherever you're listening to this podcast and say, "Hey, I need you to reach out to me," please feel free to do that. I know Jeff will help get the message to me and will reach out. And you can actually just go to tylertech.com also to find ways to connect with myself or other professionals there. We will make sure that we get your questions answered.

Jeff Harrell: And Kim, if people wanted to get more information, maybe specifically about how Tyler can support them in school transportation, where could they go?

Kim Rentner: Absolutely. Please visit us at tylertech.com and you'll be able to see our solutions there. We are also a resource for K-12 transportation even if you're not a client of ours. That's so important for me to share with everybody. Again, we're all on the same team, safety for our students and for each other out there on the road. We have a fabulous resource page that we put together, really because of the pandemic, to help any transportation professional. Check us out there, check out our resource pages, we're just so proud of them. And of course, if you have information that you think is important, let us know that too!

Jeff Harrell: Awesome. Well, Kim, thanks again for joining us, really appreciate it.

Kim Rentner: Thank you for having me.

Jeff Harrell: Well, I hope you learned some new things about student transportation, I know I did. And I love how Kim said, "It's not about getting students from point A to point B the fastest, but getting them there the safest." So important. And as a parent, very comforting. Well, thanks again for joining me today. We drop a new episode every other Monday and we have lots of great topics planned for this season, so please subscribe to the podcast. Again, I'm Jeff Harrell for Tyler Technologies. Thanks for joining me, and I'll talk to you in two weeks.