Schools

School bus project in for tune-up

Changes will be made in light of late arrivals and missed meals.

By SAUNDRA AMRHEIN, Times Staff Writer
Published October 6, 2007

School bus routes in a south county pilot program will be reviewed, tested and changed in response to ongoing problems that make students late for class and miss free breakfasts, a school district official said Friday.

Jack Davis, the district's chief information and technology officer, said that he sent a memo to School Board members outlining short-term and longer-term plans to fix the problems brought up most recently at Tuesday's School Board meeting.

At the meeting, the board decided to look into later class start times to ease the burden on seven south county middle schools, where buses show up with students well after the school day begins.

But Davis said the district is not recommending later class start times.

Instead, the memo outlines three short-term solutions in Area 5, where the district unveiled a pilot project this year to improve bus efficiency:

- Drop-off times for high school students will now be moved from 7 a.m. to 6:55 a.m. to help get the buses back out to elementary and middle-school students so they can get to school on time.

- Food servers have been asked to speed up breakfast in order to get the students to class on time.

- Middle schools are being encouraged to schedule homeroom at the start of the day.

The next round of changes includes a review of the Area 5 bus routes by routing planners and coordinators, route changes, testing of changed routes by bus drivers to pinpoint concerns or problems, and then a review of tested routes by a proofing committee, the memo states.

This process will start after the district completes its regular ridership surveys, which begin next week.

"We clearly want to respond to the concerns of families and schools," Davis said. "But we have to factor in that a pilot is experimental."

The pilot project was supposed to expand to the rest of Hillsborough County next year. The district has not decided how that will happen, though expanding it in phases is one option, Davis said.

Because the pilot project was rolled out right at the start of this school year, the district did not have enough time to get feedback and input from bus drivers, Davis said. That's what officials hope to do now.

Luis Perez was happy to hear it. He's the president of the Hillsborough School Employee Federation, whose members include bus drivers.

Feedback from bus drivers and coordinators has been the missing link all along, he said. The district has been too quick to rely on a computer program instead of the people driving the area for years.

"We have more drivers in Area 5 than we had last year, but our problems are worse this year than last year," Perez said. Some frustrated drivers, instead of following a designated route, changed course without permission in order to make up time or pick up children at safer corners.

While the district cites a problem recruiting bus drivers and blames a shortage of drivers for the late buses, Perez says the bigger issue is retaining the drivers and allowing coordinators to make decisions instead of relying on a computer model.

"That's what's going to fix the problem," he said.

Saundra Amrhein can be reached at amrhein@sptimes.com or 813 661-2441.

[Last modified October 6, 2007, 00:17:22]