What is In The Rearview?

In The Rearview is a live peer panel series from BusRight for student transportation leaders. Each session is a 30 min panel followed by 30 min of open community discussion. No slides and no sales pitch, just directors comparing notes on what they lived through.

The fall 2026 series looked back at the back-to-school crunch across two sessions on September 9 and September 23.

Who was on the panel?

Session 1 on September 9 featured three directors.

• Marc Medina, Supervisor of Transportation at Farmingdale SD in New York and NYAPT President
• Sarah Birdsong, Director of Transportation at Chapel Hill ISD in Texas
• Mike Satterfield, Chief of Transportation at Forsyth County Schools in Georgia

Session 2 on September 23 featured three more.

• Peggie L. Overton, Director of Transportation at Agua Fria Union HSD in Arizona
• Dawnett Wright, Director of Transportation at Peninsula SD in Washington and NAPT Region 5 Director
• Ben Bennett, Transportation Director at Emmett SD in Idaho

What did the panels cover?

Three problems every transportation office runs into in August.

• Late enrollment. A student moves in July and nobody tells transportation until day 2. What happens in the office in the next hour?
• The driver shortage. Everybody says driver shortage. What actually moved the needle this year?
• New and substitute drivers. A driver runs a route for the very first time on day one. What do you give them so it is not a guess?

What came out of it?

The panelists agreed that most of the back-to-school crunch is decided in spring. Start the timeline early and align with enrollment and the SIS. Set cutoff dates and hold them. Give new drivers route sheets, dry runs and device training before day one. We distilled both sessions into a printable Back-to-School Checklist with 12 practices organized by season.

Watch both replays and get the checklist at busright.com/backtoschool.

Want to see how BusRight supports these practices on your routes? Request a demo.