NEW ORLEANS — Watch part one of David Hammer's Investigation - Taken For A Ride - at 10 p.m. on WWL-TV.
Starting with the opening of the 2019-20 school year in August, WWL-TV requested school bus records from more than 50 charter school management organizations in the New Orleans area. Thirty-nine of them are based in the city of New Orleans and provide school bus transportation services for students attending 75 public charter schools in the city.
Over the course of the fall semester, WWL-TV received the names of 472 school bus drivers from 36 of the 39 charter school groups. This year for the first time, all drivers had to be permitted to drive a school bus, using a Certificate of Public Necessity & Convenience through the city of New Orleans’ For-Hire Vehicle Bureau. To get a CPNC permit, the driver must have a commercial driver’s license with school bus and passenger endorsements, 44 hours of driver safety training, a clean drug screening, a clean driving record, no crimes against children and no violent or major drug crime convictions in the last five years.
On the App and getting no results for your school? Click here: https://c1bkr508.caspio.com/dp/73f34000a7f54f0c2ba840789f62
WWL-TV received the city’s list of permitted drivers in mid-November, cross-referenced the permit list with the drivers’ names the station compiled from the schools and found 95 drivers who had not received a permit by Nov. 12.
The station created this searchable database so parents, students and others in the community can look up specific charter school groups and see which bus company they use and how many of their drivers did not get the required CPNC during the first three months of this school year.
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