School Training Solutions Expands Online Training in Florida
With our approach to online training, a state, county, or district can get a tailored solution that addresses their specific training needs. 
School Training Solutions™ (STS), a division of Smart Horizons®, is partnering with counties across Florida to provide needed training for bus drivers and support personnel. Statewide budget cuts are causing many counties in Florida to re-evaluate programs and look for more economical solutions for yearly mandated training requirements. Wakulla, Hendry, Manatee, and DeSoto counties are the most recent members of the STS online training community. These counties join others in Oklahoma, Iowa, West Virginia and Wyoming for online access to various catalogs and courses that satisfy in-service training requirements for school bus drivers and other school support employees.
Pat Jones, district transportation coordinator for Wakulla County Florida, values the program and has endorsed the training at the 2011 Mid-Year Directors’ Meeting. Ben Shew, West Virginia’s executive director of transportation, calculates that Smart Horizons online training saves their state nearly $1000.00 per driver. “These results are pretty common,” says Mike Kelley, Director of School Training Solutions. He adds, “With our approach to online training, a state, county, or district can get a tailored solution that addresses their specific training needs.”
The cost savings and value are clear: online training is significantly less expensive than classroom instruction. State, county, or district entities responsible for yearly school bus driver training commonly use the online curriculum to standardize their training and use it in addition to on-the-road training or driving course sessions. This strategy frees up instructors for on-the-road training and makes paperwork and reporting more efficient.
STS also partners with the National Association for Pupil Transportation (NAPT) to provide an online option for NAPT Professional Development Series (PDS) certifications.
A division of Smart Horizons, School Training Solutions (STS) is a comprehensive offering of online training organized to meet both state mandated in service training requirements and the professional development training needs of all school district employees. The STS course catalog contains approximately 146 hours of training and is organized into driver training for bus drivers and others operating school district vehicles, OSHA training, campus security, food services and a host of other commonly needed general subjects.
