Each week more than 20 million listeners around the country enjoy music on public radio stations, including WPR.

The post Public Radio Music Day is Wednesday, Oct. 29 appeared first on WPR.

Wisconsin lawmakers and some victims of reckless driving are proposing yet another measure to get a grip on reckless driving across the state. 

The post Reckless drivers would get ‘speed limiter’ devices under new Wisconsin bill  appeared first on WPR.

The State Building Commission has agreed to release $15 million for "planning and design" as part of the governor's plan to reorganize Wisconsin's prison system.

The post Building commission OKs planning funds for reorganizing Wisconsin prison system appeared first on WPR.

Wisconsin homeowners and businesses hit by flooding and other natural disasters would have a new avenue to help rebuild under bipartisan legislation moving through the state Capitol.

The post Wisconsin would create new state disaster aid program under bipartisan legislation appeared first on WPR.

Food service providers across Wisconsin say they’ve felt a squeeze in recent months, as household costs have increased and federal programs for the needy have been canceled. Now, with the prospect of a pause in federal food assistance looming, they’re bracing for an acute spike in need.

The post Wisconsin food banks brace for end of SNAP funds as federal shutdown continues appeared first on WPR.

A new bill supported by a bipartisan group of lawmakers would legalize online sports betting statewide throughout Wisconsin. This comes as a lawsuit from the state’s Ho-Chunk Nation alleges that several companies are already operating illegal online sportsbooks in the state.

The post New bill would legalize online sports betting in Wisconsin, circumventing state Constitution appeared first on WPR.

Deconstruct some of the most significant moments in zombie pop culture.

The post EXHUMED: A History of Zombies appeared first on WPR.

DNA detective work solves longstanding family mysteries for actor Laurence Fishburne and scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr.

The post Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates, Jr.:Finding My Roots appeared first on WPR.

Melissa Tempel, the former first grade teacher who was fired after publicly criticizing the School District of Waukesha for banning a Dolly Parton song, has filed an appeal to her First Amendment case.

The post ‘Rainbowland’ teacher files appeal in case against Waukesha school district appeared first on WPR.

After a year of being STN’s Transportation Director of the Year, Craig Beaver of Beaverton School District in Oregon joins us to discuss the ins and outs of running a large mixed-fleet school bus operation, pushing the limits with technology and data, navigating current federal changes, and looking to the future of the industry.

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Stream, subscribe and download the School Transportation Nation podcast on Apple Podcasts, Deezer, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, RadioPublic, Spotify, Stitcher and YouTube.

The post (STN Podcast E280) Nuts and Bolts: Transportation Director of the Year Talks Data-Focused Oregon Ops appeared first on School Transportation News.

This year’s National School Bus Safety Week saw districts and transportation companies around the country sharing photos of driver appreciation events, student safety trainings and student transportation department highlights.

School Bus Safety Week is sponsored by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the National Association for Pupil Transportation, and was recognized Oct. 20-24. It is held each year during the third full week of October.

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Related: WATCH: Michigan Association Releases Illegal Passing PSA for School Bus Safety Week
Related: WATCH: West Virginia Releases Illegal Passing Awareness Video
Related: Pennsylvania Announces Winners of State School Bus Safety Week Poster Contest
Related: Dick Fischer Wins STN’s Lifetime Achievement Award

The post Gallery: National School Bus Safety Week 2025 appeared first on School Transportation News.

Following a media report last month of a Waymo vehicle passing a school bus in Atlanta, Georgia, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued a preliminary evaluation into the autonomous Uber option.

The evaluation is set to “investigate the performance of the Waymo (Automated Driving System) around stopped school buses, how the system is designed to comply with school bus traffic safety laws and the system’s ability to follow those traffic safety laws. During this investigation, NHTSA will seek to identify the scope of the issue presented by this incident and identify any other similar incidents,” the report states.

Waymo and Uber announced a partnership in select cities around the U.S., starting in Phoenix and expanding to Atlanta and Austin. Riders in these cities have the option to hail autonomous rides through the Uber app. Rides can also be booked through the Waymo app in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

However, \the Waymo vehicle was captured on video Sept. 22 illegally passing a stopped school bus that was unloading children.

NHTSA opened the preliminary evaluation Oct. 17. In INOA-PE2503, the NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation states that a Waymo autonomous vehicle, or AV, failed to remain stopped “when approaching a school bus that was stopped with its red lights flashing, stop arm deployed and crossing control arm deployed.”

Related: Waymo Driverless Car Illegally Passes Stopped School Bus in Atlanta
Related: WATCH: West Virginia Releases Illegal Passing Awareness Video
Related: WATCH: Michigan Association Releases Illegal Passing PSA for School Bus Safety Week
Related: Feeling Super About Transportation Technology?

The report states that Waymo AV approached the right side of the school bus from a perpendicular side street. “The AV initially stopped but then drove around the front of the bus by briefly turning right to avoid running into the bus’s right front end, then turning left to pass in front of the bus and then turning further left and driving down the roadway past the entire left side of the bus. During this maneuver, the Waymo AV passed the bus’s extended crossing control arm near disembarking students (on the bus’s right side) and passed the extended stop arm on the bus’s left side,” the report continued.

At the time of the incident, the Waymo AV was operated by Waymo’s 5th Generation Automated Driving System and no safety operator was present in the vehicle. The report noted that Waymo has surpassed 100 million miles of driving as of July, approximately 2 million miles logged per week.

“Based on NHTSA’s engagement with Waymo on this incident and the accumulation of operational miles, the likelihood of other prior similar incidents is high,” the report states.

The post NHTSA Investigates Autonomous Waymo Rides After Illegal School Bus Passing appeared first on School Transportation News.

Declining birth rates in and of themselves aren’t news. They have been well-publicized for years across the U.S. and Canada. China is even worse off. Throw a dart at a map, and any country you hit is likely experiencing a drop in births. There are many reasons for this, but they are all inconsequential except that they impact education and student transportation.

The National Center on Education Statistics recently published data that projected a decline in overall K-12 public school enrollments through 2030. It does not refer once to falling birth rates, but we know they are central to the issue. (NCES does refer to the effect of dropouts, transfers to and from public schools and state-level migration.)

COVID-19 unsurprisingly resulted in a 2 percent decrease in public school student enrollment. The real eye-opener, according to NCES, is that enrollment decreases will rise 6 percent over the next several school years.

Meanwhile, private charter school enrollment, which spiked during COVID, has “significantly slowed,” according to the Cato Institute. Yet competition remains high for public school bus transportation in states like Ohio, a microcosm for how the issue could affect the rest of the nation. One of several states that requires publicly funded school buses to transport students attending private and charter schools, Ohio’s challenge has been exacerbated over the past several years by a dramatic expansion in the enrollment of private school students, about 90,000 of them.

Not all these students need transportation service, true. Still, local news outlets reported last month that for the second-straight year, many public high school students were left without school bus service because the vehicles were dispatched instead to transport their private and charter school peers. Ohio public school districts are mandated to transport K-8 students to their private or charter schools and offer the same transportation service to private high school students that public high school students receive.

The publication the74million.org reported this summer that 16 states offer public funding for private school tuition to any student in the state. On one hand, this means inevitably more transportation, which theoretically is a good thing. But then factor in one of if not the biggest startup challenges: the school bus driver shortage.

Over the past year, several readers have bristled at the term, “shortage.” One told me the industry is not suffering a driver shortage, or a shortage of any other transportation staff, for that matter. No, instead they said the industry has a retention problem. No wonder with pay, though increased out of necessity, hardly if at all keeping up with inflation and school bus drivers stretched thin over routes with multiple tiers and no rest in between. An issue experienced by many readers but rarely discussed by the media are school bus drivers “calling out” sick when perhaps they aren’t. Everyone needs a mental health day. But in larger and urban school districts, I’m told callouts can run rampant, and the cases aren’t always legitimate. Many drivers are now salaried employees. If they aren’t sick, then what is the real issue?

Maybe they are sick of their job or more aptly sick of the organizational culture. Find another job, one might argue. That is hardly a constructive response to an issue that undermines the very reason student transportation operations exist.

Now, more than ever responsible leadership is fundamental to transportation success. In addition to coaching the operational “X’s and O’s,” provide a pathway to employees that encourage them to stay behind the wheel, at the dispatch desk, or in the maintenance facility. This goes for the transportation leaders, too. What is keeping them in their current role at their current school district, or encouraging them to look elsewhere?

In addition to exploring school startup challenges, this month’s edition shares examples and perspectives of how proper leadership is helping transportation operations not only navigate the many pressures laid out before them but succeed at their missions of delivering students safely and efficiently to school and home again. And having fun while doing it.

I’ve written this before, and I’ll write it again. STN co-founder and Editor and Publisher Emeritus Bill Paul repeatedly would tell me that as long as parents keep making children, there will be a need for the yellow school bus. The iconic vehicle certainly has competition today in many forms, birth rates being just one of them. Don’t let your organizational culture be another.

Editor’s Note: As reprinted from the October 2025 issue of School Transportation News.

Related: (STN Podcast E277) Make the System Better: Safety Leadership Training & D.C. Insider on Disability Supports
Related: School Bus Safety Company Unveils New Leadership Training Course to Elevate Safety Leadership
Related: (STN Podcast E279) Encourage, not Discourage: NY Top Transportation Team Talks Work Culture
Related: How concerned are you about the data security of your student transportation operations?

The post Giving Birth to Proper Leadership appeared first on School Transportation News.