While a bill number had yet to be filed, Rep. Baron Hill (D-IN) was preparing language for only the third presidential proclamation recognizing the safety of school buses and the drivers responsible for getting some 26 million students to and from school each day.

That National School Bus Safety Committee headed by Dick Fischer, a pupil transportation consultant and a former California school district transportation director who effectively began School Bus Safety Week in the 1960s, worked over the last year with staffers in Rep. Hill's office to draft the language that is different from a House Resolution passed by Congress in 2006 that NSTA secured.

School Bus Safety Week this year is celebrated the week of Oct. 18. If passed out of the House next month, the proclamation would go to the Oval Office for President Obama's signature.

Fischer's committee is a separate entity from the American School Bus Council's efforts to celebrate School Bus Safety Week nationwide, which include those of NAPT, NASDPTS and NSTA members. An ASBC representative added that, while the council is not a signatory on the new proclamation, it supports any efforts to increase awareness of the yellow school bus.

Letters of support for the proclamation are being sought by other congressional members as well. To request your representative back the effort, download a customizable letter to print on company or school district letterhead.

Previous presidential proclamations were signed by President Nixon in 1973, when School Bus Safety Week was celebrated in April, and President Reagan in October of 1981.

See a larger article on School Bus Safety Week and the drive for a new presidential proclamation in the October issue of School Transportation News magazine. The name and contact inforrmation for congressional members can be located online at www.house.gov.