School district continues to tackle busing goals
The School District of Lee County continues to dive deeper into busing issues to reach its on-time goal of more than 95%.
“We are always going to have avenues of challenges each and every day and rightfully so. Not every bus driver comes to work every day. Sometimes people get sick. Sometimes they have a family obligation and if they are entitled to leave they are expected to take that and take care of their personal business, but that does put us in a bind,” Superintendent Dr. Christopher Bernier said at the Sept. 6 school board meeting.
Staff is looking at everything to solve the district’s transportation issues, which include looking at new solutions.
“I don’t know if I want to announce them here tonight because they are very much in the making, but I think we have to find a way to cover uncovered routes,” he said. “We have to get better into our schools and out of our schools and that includes enhancing our parent pick up and drop off lines and making sure those lines are out of the way of the buses so the buses can be more operationally efficient.”
To have a better understanding of on-time percentages, Bernier is asking the transportation department for not just a breakdown of the total system, but high school, elementary and middle school on time percentages.
“Additionally, we are beginning to highlight those school buildings that are above 10% and those numbers higher than that. That will be a conversation between the chief operations officer, myself and the director of transportation on a weekly basis,” he said.
In addition, the district is working with nonprofit organizations, such as the STARS program, Boys & Girls Club and YMCA, to restore some bus stops closer to the locations at the board’s request.
“We have said, though, to those community partners that this is a one-year only option. By this time next year, they will have had to find a different business model,” Bernier said. “But we are not going to bring our students closer to those nonprofit locations at the expense of those students walking back to their neighborhoods. We will drop off our students in their neighborhoods and if we have remaining students for those programs, then we will bring them closer to those organizations and make sure they are in a legitimate, or more easy walking distance, to the location, but may not necessarily be door-to-door.”
He said with transportation continuing to be a challenge, a middle school proximity plan is on the horizon.
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