Free Republic

Maine’s Department of Education is reportedly urging school districts to stop using taxpayer-subsidized electric school buses that were purchased within the last year. The districts reported problems with the new buses, which were supplied by Canada-based Lion Electric Co., last fall ... The windshields on the buses would leak whenever it rained, as the glass didn’t appear to be securely in place. concerns about mixing electricity and water from the leaking windshields led them to stop driving some of the buses. The buses, which cost about $345,000 each, were also sold with misaligned or incorrect lettering on the sides, and...

The Boulder Valley School District says it wants to replace its diesel school buses with more environmentally friendly green buses. However, the district is going to buy five new diesel school buses because the electric and propane-powered buses won't hold up on the more demanding routes. The district is set to approve the purchase of five new diesel passenger school buses for $714,876. The district is expected to approve the new school buses at its Oct. 24 meeting. The district said the new diesel buses are needed because, "diesel school buses are essential for mountain routes due to their robust...

Montgomery County Board of Education President Patricia O’Neill asked the county’s state legislators Wednesday if they could help eliminate tolls for county school buses that drive on the state-operated Intercounty Connector. A Montgomery County Public Schools spokeswoman said in an email Friday the school system spends nearly $18,000 per year on ICC tolls. Buses that typically use the ICC include those for cross-county special education routes and sports trips, according to spokeswoman Gboyinde Onijala. “It would help us a great deal to make a more efficient transportation system for the 100,000 students we transport every day if we could use...

Portland Public Schools officials are rethinking a district ban on rap music on buses after allegations of racism. The district had banished hip-hop from its buses, deeming the genre "inappropriate." Teri Brady, senior director of transportation at Portland Public Schools, sent a directive to bus drivers in March forbidding "religious, rap music, or talk show programs." The memo included a list of acceptable stations, broken down into three genres: pop, country and jazz. Parent Colleen Ryan-Onken obtained a copy and it circulated in August among outraged parents, prompting the district to walk back the directive in statements released Wednesday.

The commute to and from school can be a harrowing experience in many parts of China. As rush hour begins, children are piled into makeshift buses with complete disregard for safety regulations. The controversy began in Macedonia’s capital Skopje on Friday, November 25 after China’s ambassador gifted the country a fleet of 23 sleek, double-decker school buses. Built by the Chinese manufacturer Yutong, the buses hold 35 and are fitted with automatic doors, fire extinguishers and seatbelts. They will be used primarily for transporting students in Macedonia’s rural areas. The gesture might have been favourably viewed were it not for...

Despite snowballing reports and rumors, Sarah Palin's eldest son, Track, was not part of the gang of four teenagers who criminally vandalized 44 Alaska school buses in 2005, a key culprit told The News. "Track wasn't with me. Track had nothing to do with it," participant Deryck Harris, 20, said Wednesday in an exclusive interview.Citing an anonymous judicial source, the Anchorage radio station 1080 KUDO was the first to report last week that Track Palin was the unidentified 16-year-old delinquent who not only trashed the buses but also swiped the bottle of alcohol that fueled the teen rampage. The...

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city beginning 8 a.m. Sunday morning but urged residents to consider escaping "the mother of all storms" before then. New Orleans residents leave Friday via Interstate 10 westbound ahead of Hurricane Gustav. 1 of 3 more photos » "You need to be scared," Nagin said. "You need to be concerned and you need to get your butts moving out of New Orleans right now. This is the storm of the century."

MUST SEE show .. Glenn Beck is tracking info that the terrorists are apparently plotting a potential attack on a massive scale. Has experts formerly with Homeland Security and the FBI collaborating. Freeper thread: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1895382/posts

I’ll be brief this time about Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans. Due to stupidity and incompetence, he did not carry out the evacuation plan for his city. As a result, more than a thousand of his constituents died, and tens of thousands suffered personal disaster, and had to be rescued by the Coast Guard and the National Guard. There was an established evacuation plan for Southern Louisiana, dated 1 January, 2004. Local and national media were incompetent in not reporting this plan and its details. The salient point was that the mandatory evacuation had to be called early, to...

Gov. Kathleen Blanco left for Holland on Monday to learn how the Dutch created the huge flood-control system that protects a land much farther below sea level than Louisiana. The trip means the Democratic governor will miss President Bush's visit to New Orleans, scheduled for Thursday... The governor was among more than 40 government, business and education leaders - including Sens. David Vitter and Mary Landrieu ... Landrieu said the ambassador told her about that country's flood of 1953, when 1,800 people died. "He said, `Why don't you all come over and see what we've done since then?'" Landrieu recounted....

The mayor of New Orleans, a harsh critic of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, is coming under increasing fire for exacerbating the disaster by not properly implementing his city's emergency-management plan. A high-ranking Department of Homeland Security official, who asked not to be identified, yesterday said local leaders have known for years that the city's levees were not adequate to protect the Big Easy if it was struck by a Category 3 or greater hurricane. The official, who also questioned the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) slow response to the disaster, said Mayor C. Ray Nagin knew the National...

I'm prepared to give New Orleans Mayor Nagin the benefit of the doubt on the school bus unavailability.In the June 9 2005 Orleans Parish School Board meeting minutes - posted elsewhere on FR in another thread - it's clear that the Board was not providing Nagin with any support whatsoever on making the buses available in an evac (let alone drivers).And since this very discussion had been ongoing for at least a year (again evidenced in the minutes), I presume they hadn't signed-off on it by Aug 27th either.In addition, the Orleans Parish Schools had been under management by a...

It's A QuagmireToday while watching CNN, I saw a guy who was sitting on the lawn in front of his house in New Orleans, complaining that his two neighbors' corpses were in the apartment next to him, nobody had come to get the bodies, and FEMA hadn't brought him any food yet. Equally astonishing, I've seen a number of complaints from liberals looking for an opportunity to condemn Bush along the same lines: "Why aren't they sending the military in, all of it? Why aren't we airdropping food and water into the city? Why isn't the city filled with small...

Found this in the Google cache, the minutes from a June 5 meeting of the Orleans Parish School Board. The Board members had a very specific discussion about releasing school buses to the City Of New Orleans for hurricane evacuations. Sorry for the length, but it does provide some valuable insights, e.g., what took the City so long to conclude this deal? They'd been talking with the School Board for at least a year. http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:-NDJWqbkSEUJ:www.nops.k12.la.us/content/board/minutes/2005/bmin060905.pdf+%22school+buses%22+%22new+orleans+parish%22&hl=en&client=opera Orleans Parish School Board 3510 General de Gaulle Drive New Orleans, Louisiana 70114 A Committee of the Whole Meeting of the Orleans Parish School Board...

The title says it all. NBC News is currently reporting on "Missed Opportunities" -- actions that could have saved lives. One of those missed opportunities is the 200+ flooded school buses. NBC is even referring to the evacuation plan and its reference to the school buses. "Today the mayor would not comment [on the flooded school buses]," reported NBC's Lisa Myers. I kid you not! The report is only five or six days after Free Republic reported it, and only three or four days after Drudge reported it!

If Someone Will Run a Newspaper Page in Baton Rouge Showing All The Buses, I will Pay for it. Write me if you have the ability to compose and submit the ad.joinedafterattack@msn.com write me and let me know if you can pull this off.

School Bus Services Keep Rolling With Lawmakers' Help State Regulation Put Privatized Transportation Companies In Jeopardy HOUSTON -- Privatized buses were put in a bind Monday when it looked like they wouldn't be rolling. But, with the help of a few local lawmakers, the companies and state regulators hammered out a truce, allowing the operators to continue running until a firm decision is made regarding insurance coverage. Small private bus companies transport thousands of students -- mostly low income -- to and from Houston schools everyday. The bus services carry students that Houston Independent school district buses will not carry...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.Plant's closing has had a damaging impact on area businesses. MOUNT PLEASANT (GTNS) -- The Blue Bird Midwest bus factory in Mount Pleasant is empty. The last bus pulled out last weekend, and as of Thursday, the remaining chassis are gone. Blue Bird's closing has had a damaging ripple effect on other area businesses. Todd Boldt, owner of Boldt Welding and Automotive, had a contract with Blue Bird to do automotive work. He used to employ 14 people and now is down to four. Boldt said at least 50 percent of his...