Blog #343: My Reaction to a Lack of Widespread School Bus Evacuation Drills
- Jeffrey Snyder
- Jun 20, 2023
- 2 min read
As part of my speaking engagements this past week on Hutchinson Island on behalf of Infinite Learning Academy, I did a presentation on School Safety Drills and their impact on neurodivergent special education students. One of the drills I covered were school bus evacuation drills and some people in the audience told me that their school district does not do school bus evacuation drills. They do fire, lockdown and tornado drills, but not school bus evacuation drills.
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Now you might be wondering how I reacted to a confession like this? School Bus Evacuation drills are essential because students need to know what to do in the event the bus gets into a situation, such as an accident or stops on a railroad track and they need to get out of the bus. Being a former special education student, I used to find these kinds of drills bothersome and sensory provoking.
However, as I got older, I learned to accept school bus evacuation drills as a part of life, much like going through airport security.
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School Bus Evacuation Drills are no different than any other type of drills out there. To say that not all the basic school safety drills are given to students and teachers (or other school staff for that matter) is a sign that we are denying our schools the opportunity to be given tools necessary to save their lives and lives of others around them.
In fact, Infinite Learning Academy’s director brought up a story where a bus that she and her students were on several years ago caught fire on a freeway and that they had to evacuate the bus. Why were they successful in their actions? Because they had training and awareness of what to do when they had the emergency that they were in.
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To add to this, almost ten years ago, a school bus in my hometown collided with a car and the students on board got out of the bus because they knew what to do according to the superintendent at the time, Arlene Bosco (who was the psychologist at the high school my first three years there).
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This is saying that as someone in special education who had to experience school safety drills growing up,
Typically, the drill stars with a school bus evacuation drill video that is only 10-15 minutes long and then you move onto the real bus, practice the drill and get on with the rest of your day.
I believe we need to prepare for the unexpected because we cannot just pretend like we will never have a situation where the bus gets into an accident or breaks down on a railroad track. It’s only 15 to 20 minutes of the school day and it may come in handy when the time comes.
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Catch you all later!!
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