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Will school bus changes be enough?

The school district revamped policies after two student deaths last year. But even district officials wonder if enough has been done.

By THOMAS C. TOBIN
Published July 30, 2005

[Times photos: Carrie Pratt]

Brian Wilson, a bus service recorder, walks past a line of school buses at the district's main bus compound in Largo on Friday morning. Classes -- and bus service -- will resume Wednesday.

	New fingerprint scanners have been installed in Pinellas district school buses. The technology is designed to help make sure students are accounted for and are on the right bus.

After 34 years in the airline industry - much of it spent working ticket counters and passenger gates - Linda E. Huber said she thought she could handle anything the public dished out.

Then she became a Pinellas County school bus driver to supplement her pension.

Little in that first career prepared her for the middle school girl who screamed profanities in her face last year, or the students who threw a tennis ball that lodged under her gas pedal while she was driving, or the child who launched a battery out the window, hitting the hood of a moving Lexus.

"And that's just the mild stuff," said Huber, 61, a five-year driver who said she finds most students well-behaved but is made weary many nights by the growing number who aren't.

"Why we do it, I don't know sometimes," she said.

Like many parents concerned about safety after two bus-related student deaths last year, Huber and her fellow drivers are hoping for better times when school starts Wednesday.

They point to a number of significant changes in the district's transportation department, including stepped-up driver training, a stronger focus on bus discipline for students, a new director and a new team of safety "auditors" to look for dangerous conditions on the road.

"The eyes of the community are going to be on us this fall," superintendent Clayton Wilcox told drivers at a training session this week.

One of his biggest changes: a new call center to handle the perennial avalanche of inquiries from the public. One day last week, as parents phoned in to check on bus stops, the center fielded 1,000 calls - up from 300 per day the previous week.

In the past, those calls went to route supervisors and dispatchers, distracting them from their primary jobs. The situation created daily strain and dysfunction that may have factored into the deaths of 16-year-old Rebecca McKinney and 8-year-old Brooke Ingoldsby last school year.

McKinney's family filed a lawsuit Friday against the School Board, alleging the district was negligent and didn't - despite repeated complaints - attempt to fix its problems until Rebecca was killed. The Pinellas' bus system was a "blueprint for doom" last year and hasn't improved much since, Tampa lawyer Steven Yerrid said at a news conference.

Indeed, the department, which has a $38.5-million budget, continues to struggle in some respects.

"Quite honestly, we still face some challenges," Wilcox told the drivers. "We didn't go back through the summer and fix everything. We tried. But I got to tell you we didn't get it all done."

Among the problems is a shortage of relief drivers who fill in when the full-timers who know the routes best are sick or on leave. Wilcox begged current drivers to be judicious about taking days off until more can be hired.

To attract more applicants, the district has dropped the requirement that they must have a high school diploma or a GED. Instead, there will be an aptitude test.

Full-time drivers earn from $11.65 to $16.94 an hour plus benefits - less than area sanitation drivers.

The district also is crossing its fingers over a system that by late September will track the exact locations of buses and their riders. It was supposed to be in place last fall. The system combines global positioning technology with a product that makes a digital version of a students' fingerprints.

"We spent over $2-million to put the ... system in place and I got to tell you I have my doubts," Wilcox said.

He also said it would take time for new management changes to start working well. In addition to the safety auditors and the new director, those changes include a "flattening" of the chain of command to allow driver complaints to be heard more quickly.

Wilcox has expanded that idea beyond the transportation department, telling principals to take driver complaints about student behavior on buses more seriously. In the past, drivers say, some administrators failed to back them up with consequences for students who misbehave.

In return, the drivers are being asked to limit their discipline complaints to those that pose a safety hazard. Wilcox said of students: "You don't get five strikes at the bus driver and you start over when you get to school."

If principals or transportation supervisors don't solve safety problems within 48 hours, he told drivers, "I want to know. Because I will get it changed for you. I promise you."

Some have grumbled that the staffing changes amount to a rearranging of the deck chairs. Wilcox is aware of the complaint, as is Anthony Dzielski, 48, the new interim director.

Dzielski (pronounced JELSKI) is a 26-year Navy veteran with two master's degrees who commanded helicopter units that moved supplies and personnel to the front lines. As a wing commander, he oversaw more than 100 aircraft and 1,500 people. He retired as a captain May 31 and has been with the district about six weeks.

He said he did all the hiring for the reorganization, drawing from the department's management ranks, its bus drivers and other district offices. He said he was not influenced by personalities or last year's events.

"We've got a wealth of experience here," Dzielski said. "There are people who have been doing this for a long time and they've been doing things correctly."

Taken together, he said, the changes will allow the district to "see things and correct them before they become a problem."

One change - the call center - might have prevented the death of Brooke Ingoldsby had it been in place last year. The girl's grandmother had been waiting for her at a bus stop but left after an hour when the bus failed to show. As relatives called her school, which was closed, and other district offices, the girl was dropped off on the wrong side of a busy street and killed trying to cross.

The call center could have located the bus, confirmed Brooke was aboard and communicated the situation to the driver, with one call.

At last week's training sessions, some drivers quibbled with parts of the district's plans. Many rolled their eyes at training that asked them to respond to student outbursts with calm counseling and empathy.

"When you've got 45 teenagers and you've got a brawl in the back, how are you going to talk them into making better decisions?" said Huber, the former airline employee.

Overall, however, the changes were for the better, she said. "It's definitely a beginning. And, yes, it's going in the right direction."

Call 587-2020.

This is the phone number for the Pinellas school district's new call center for all questions about transportation. The new system keeps a record of every call and how it was handled.

Officials say this will solve a long-standing problem of lost complaints. The center will be open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. for the first few months of the school year. Later, the closing time will change to 6 p.m. E-mails should go to callcenter@pcsb.org Letters may be faxed to 588-6550.

[Last modified July 30, 2005, 01:26:17]