LoginTSD Conference Honors Linda Bluth with Lifetime Achievement Award
FRISCO, Texas — Following a tenured faculty general session panel representing more than 200 years of experience in special education and student transportation, Linda Bluth received a lifetime achievement award from School Transportation News during the Transporting Students with Disabilities (TSD) and Special Needs National Conference.
The session, “What to Do When Your Supervisor Asks You to Do Something You Know Is Incorrect,” brought together experienced educators and transportation professionals to discuss navigating difficult workplace decisions. Panelists were praised for sharing their knowledge with conference attendees, described as future leaders in the field.
Bluth accounts for 61 of the years represented by the panel, which she moderated based on a column she wrote of the same name published in the October edition of STN magazine.
Bluth keynoted the inaugural TSD Conference in 1992 and became one of the first tenured faculty experts added by then owner Roseann Schwaderer. But Bluth’s experience in special education dates to 1965, 10 years before Congress passed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, which in 1990 was reauthorized as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
Related: The History of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
She graduated from the College of Emporia in Kansas with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education and a minor in psychology, then she obtained her master’s degree in psychology with a major in tests and measurements and a minor in mental retardation. Bluth earned her doctorate in education from the University of Illinois at Champaign and its Department of Special Education with a major in mental retardation and emotional disturbances and a minor in learning disabilities.
Her first five professional years took place in special education classrooms as a teacher in Ohio and New York. In 1970, she transitioned to college instruction at Parkland Junior College’s Department of Psychology in Champaign, Illinois. At the same time, she was the supervisor of student teachers in the Department of Special Education at the University of Illinois. She later became an adjunct professor of special education at Ball State University, Alabama State University, the University of Alabama, Johns Hopkins University, and Coppin State University. She also was an assistant professor at the University of Maryland and Loyola College.
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She also served as associate superintendent of Baltimore City Public Schools in Maryland before joining the Maryland State Department of Education, where she spent 20 years, most notably as chief of the agency’s special education and quality assurance office and later as a consultant. Bluth has also served as an expert witness dozens of cases involving the transportation of students with disabilities and as a consultant on over a dozen more state and national contracts for both the public and private sectors.
A regular speaker and trainer at state and national conferences up until the last several years, she became well known in student transportation circles as one part of the “dynamic duo” alongside special education attorney and fellow TSD Conference tenured faculty member Peggy Burns. STN co-founder Bill Paul introduced the two in the early 1990s, and Bluth and Burns became mainstays at STN EXPO West in Reno, Nevada.
Prior to Friday’s award presentation, Burns joined Bluth as well as TSD Conference tenured faculty members Launi Harden, Alexandra Robinson and Sue Shutrump for the general session on how to respond when a supervisor directs you to do something illegal or improper.
In addition to the STN Lifetime Achievement Award, Bluth was inducted int the NAPT Hall of Fame in 2018, received the association’s Distinguished Service Award in 2000, and was chosen for the Q’Straint/Sure-Lok Special Needs Transportation Award in 2013. She’s received at least a dozen other awards from state governments and universities for her work.
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