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Schools

When school buses drive everyone crazy

New schools. New routes. New policies. Getting kids to school is getting more complicated. And the phones just keep ringing.

By THOMAS C. TOBIN
Published August 11, 2005

	[Times photo: Dirk Shadd]
	Tonya Terrill, 22, covers her face while fielding a call while working as a temporary employee at the Pinellas County Schools Call Center. At left is Myrtle Ward, 51. The team gets an average of 1,200 phone calls a day about school bus problems.

A 5-year-old boy steps off a school bus, suddenly alone in front of the Clearwater apartment complex where he lives. His mother waits at the correct stop about a mile away.

A 10-year-old South Pasadena boy boards the wrong bus and his parents go two hours not knowing where he is, unable to get through on the school district's new hotline. He turns up at a bus depot.

The district fails to assign bus stops to two sisters in high school. When their mother finally breaks through to a hotline after days of busy signals, an operator tells her someone will get back to her in three to five days.

In these and scores of other Pinellas households this week, parents have grudgingly abandoned the district's bus system and are driving their children to school - many taking time off from jobs.

For some, it's the only way their kids will make it to class. For others, it's a choice born of doubts that the system can deliver their children safely and on time.

Once again, despite a major reorganization, a change in directors and a new superintendent who has made student transportation a priority, the Pinellas school bus system begins a school year under siege.

Last week, more than 6,500 callers jammed the district's new call center, which has only 30 operators. The calls are continuing this week at a rate of 1,200 to 1,500 a day.

Widespread bus problems are part of a recurring back-to-school routine that has many Pinellas parents asking: Does it have to be this way?

Is this a fact of life in a large urban school district? Or can bus problems be predicted and acted upon before the situation becomes so dire? And should parents blame the choice plan, which has greatly complicated the task of getting kids to school?

"It's the same thing every year, just with a slightly different flavor," said Bill Rovillo, the father of the 10-year-old who ended his day at a bus depot.

He said he had high hopes after superintendent Clayton Wilcox redesigned the transportation department in response to the deaths of two students in bus-related accidents last year.

"Haven't they figured out yet that you should ramp up your call center" when school starts, Rovillo asked. "Somewhere along the line, somebody's got to be accountable, not only for our children's safety but to make sure the money is there to do it right."

Hernando Gallegos will not allow his kindergartener back on the bus until the district assures him the boy will be safe. It was his son who was dropped off in front of the family's apartment complex on the second day of school with no one to greet him.

The boy made it home, where an uncle was surprised to see him. But Gallegos said the situation was chillingly reminiscent of the miscues that led to last year's student deaths.

After two dozen calls to the call center and another to an assistant principal, a transportation manager phoned. But no one has explained how the mixup happened.

"It seems like semicontrolled chaos," Gallegos said.

Wilcox said Wednesday the district has worked hard to improve the bus system. Routes are safer, the district is more responsive to parents and employees are better trained than they were last year. Still, he conceded, those words sound hollow to parents facing bus problems this week.

"I'm still not satisfied with the results," he said of his reorganization. "These first few days of school have blown me away."

The siege of disgruntled parents has Wilcox musing about the long-term viability of the choice plan. The plan relies heavily on school buses, enabling black and nonblack families to voluntarily desegregate by choosing schools outside their neighborhoods.

Though designed as a more palatable system after 30 years of court-ordered busing, choice has proved much more expensive and difficult to implement.

The district transports about 45,000 students, 13,000 more than it did before choice, and the number of routes has increased nearly 50 percent.

Because the system sends so many students in so many directions, buses are only 59 percent full on average. Besides the obvious efficiency problem, that works against Pinellas because the state reimburses districts based in part on how full their buses are.

The state typically gives Pinellas about $17-million a year for transportation. Meanwhile, the district's transportation costs have soared to more than $38-million in recent years.

In the past seven years, Pinellas bus system costs have increased 47 percent while its entire operating budget has increased just 26 percent.

The district set aside about $23-million to ease the transition to choice, sliding a portion of it into the budget each year. But that fund runs dry at the end of this fiscal year.

The plan was to "realign" the budget so the full cost of choice would be gradually absorbed into the budget after the transition money went away. But the district hasn't been able to do that, said Doug Forth, a district budget official, citing tight budgets in recent years.

"I don't see anything that's going to cause us to spend less money next year" on transportation, Wilcox said. "The issue is at what point do you say enough is enough."

Wilcox said he hoped a citizen task force that is starting to discuss the future of the choice plan will take cost and logistical problems into account.

Bus system problems may be a fact of life in large school districts, acknowledged Wilcox, who is in his 10th month as superintendent. "But I do think we can get a lot better."

Pinellas could use more drivers, but its problems have more to do with routes. The district added about 40 routes over the summer, moved thousands of bus stops off busy roads and added 3,000 stops - all because of safety concerns that grew out of last year's student deaths.

Many parents are calling to complain about the new stop locations. Others are concerned about sexual offenders. Many don't have stops at all and some are calling with safety concerns.

In the past, Wilcox argues, many of those complaints were lost in the system or never logged in. After last year's students deaths, an investigation found the transportation department had poor customer service, among other problems. The call center is at least capturing parent complaints and following up, Wilcox said.

With no accurate count of previous years' complaints, the district had no good gauge of what the center's volume would be, said district spokesman Sterling Ivey.

"Now we know better how to plan for future years," he said.

From Monday to Friday last week, 6,546 calls jammed the new bus hotline at Pinellas school district headquarters in Largo. Here's what happened to them:

About 4,000 callers got through to one of about 30 operators.

About 2,500 callers hung up, frustrated at being placed on hold. They waited an average of 14 minutes before giving up.

Those who got through waited an average of 20 minutes. The longest wait was an hour and 40 minutes.

Operators took each caller's complaint and entered it into a computer. A team of about 40 routers worked to resolve complaints based on the order they arrived, though safety issues got extra attention. Many callers complained their child had not been assigned a bus route or needed a new bus stop. Such requests take three to five days to process because they create a domino effect. Other families along those routes must be notified of changes in pick-up or drop-off times caused when a child is added or dropped from a route.

NOTE: The call center continues to field more than 1,200 calls a day.

Sources: Pinellas school district; parent interviews, e-mails and letters

[Last modified August 11, 2005, 00:44:04]