News

Peabody panel pushing bus drivers' CPR training

By Stacie N. Galang
Staff writer
Published: March 25, 2008

PEABODY — School Committee members are backing a state bill that would require first-time school bus drivers to complete a basic first aid course before receiving their licenses.

In a letter dated March 17, Superintendent C. Milton Burnett informed the city's state Reps. Ted Speliotis and Joyce Spiliotis that the entire school board supported the amendment to the state law overseeing licensing of school bus drivers.

Peabody parent Leandra LeClerc brought the bill to the attention of committee members after she learned a 5-year-old Marlborough boy choked to death Jan. 30 while riding the bus home. LeClerc's son had once been injured on a bus ride home, and she wanted the board to consider improvements to its own bus policy, she wrote in a Feb. 8 e-mail.

"It brought back things for me," LeClerc said yesterday of seeing the news broadcast of the Marlborough boy. "It's all the more reason they need to have the bus drivers trained."

LeClerc also sent committee members information about the bill making its way through the Legislature and asked them to consider supporting it.

"Our children are counting on us to keep them safe," she wrote in the e-mail.

LeClerc welcomed any additional training for bus drivers. Sometimes it takes a bad situation to turn around things around, she said. She was grateful the local board had banded together to back the bill.

Burnett said yesterday that LeClerc's letter brought the bill to their attention and provided some impetus for committee members to act. He said it was the first time since he started as superintendent that committee members had written a letter supporting a legislative bill.

The superintendent said its bus drivers are employed through contractor First Student and are not required to have first aid training.