Supervising Children on Head Start Buses
Head Start transportation teams have an important job. Each day, safe and reliable transportation services can be a child’s first interaction with Head Start and Early Head Start programs.
Keeping Children Safe in Vehicles: A Guide for Families and Caregivers
Many young children are seriously injured or killed in motor vehicle crashes. Using a car seat reduces the risk of death in passenger vehicles by 71 percent for infants younger than age 1 and by 54 percent for toddlers ages 1 to 4. Early education staff can use these flip charts to help families learn how to keep their child safe in a motor vehicle.
Directions for Bus Sign-in Sheet
Families depend on programs to keep their children safe at all times. This includes when they travel to and from the program by bus. This sample sign-in sheet has a written attendance log that staff and family members can sign every time a child gets on and off the bus. There is also a space on the sheet for a photo of each child. The photos help staff with name-to-face recognition, so they always release the right child to an authorized adult. These simple injury prevention strategies can help staff account for all children who ride the bus.
Child Passenger Safety
Head Start transportation teams have an important job. Each day, safe and reliable transportation services can be a child’s first interaction with Head Start and Early Head Start programs. Not only do transportation teams have to ensure that buses are safe and routes run on time, they also must supervise children. This webinar may help transportation teams identify strategies for meeting some of the many challenges they experience every day.
Meeting Transportation Standards
This page provides policy and regulations, as well as helpful information about transportation in Early Head Start and Head Start programs.
School Bus Transportation of Children with Special Health Care Needs
Local child care programs and school systems that provide transportation services are responsible for ensuring that children with special needs are safely transported on all forms of federally approved transportation. Program directors and transportation personnel can refer to this article for recommendations to consider when developing plans to provide the most current and proper support to children with special transportation requirements.
Keeping Children Safe in and Around Cars
It is never safe for a child to be in or around a vehicle without adult supervision. During the warmer months of the year, unattended children left in cars are more likely to suffer heat-related illnesses. Children also may suffer injury when playing alone around parked vehicles. Program staff and parents can use this resource to learn more about car safety practices that keep young children healthy.
Communication Training for Head Start Transportation Staff
Head Start programs that provide transportation services should consider communication skills training to increase the efficiency of their transportation staff. Program directors and transportation supervisors may use this resource to identify training issues that impact the quality of transportation services.
Bridging the Business Office Divide: Using Basic Accounting to Communicate What Drives Transportation Costs
Programs must explain the impact of rising transportation costs to key stakeholders in order to maintain budgets for new buses and other transportation expenditures. This resource may be used by program directors and transportation coordinators to help them manage, communicate, and control transportation costs.
Head Start: Progress and Challenges in Implementing Transportation Regulations
The General Accountability Office (GAO) completed a report that examined how Head Start grantee and delegate agencies had implemented the Head Start transportation regulations. The report can help local Head Start programs' improve their understanding of the challenges of transportation services. The report specifically provides information on the numbers of children transported by grantees and delegates that submitted requests to the Office of Head Start in 2006 for more time to implement the monitor and restraint provisions, as well as the challenges that were faced in the past.