A grant of more than $800,000 from the state of Michigan will go toward Proactive Response Training for school bus drivers and transportation directors throughout the entire state. The training was developed by the Mason County Sheriff’s office along with West Shore Educational Service District and focuses on “training the trainer." The training focuses on being prepared for the unexpected, building scenarios around potential risks and giving employees the tools to respond before law enforcement or responding officers can reach the incident.

In the summer, the West Shore Educational Service District in Ludington, Mich. also helped to train bus drivers from Ohio districts via Zoom.

“In a classroom, you’re in brick and mortar, you have doors, you have other people around to help you,” Morris, who is also a past-president of the Michigan Association for Pupil Transportation, told the School Transportation News. “You don’t have those options on a school bus. You don’t have space, you have one adult a lot of times, that one adult has to make those split-second decisions.”