To the residents of the towns in the Mt. Blue Regional School District:
The recent article I read on the Daily Bulldog about switching to a single bus run versus the current two-tier model has sparked some controversy and I would like to share my opinion. First, I’ll qualify myself by saying that I have worked in the pupil transportation industry as a bus driver and a manager. I do not live in an MBRSD town and do not have anything to gain or lose by writing this opinion. My opinion on switching to a single bus run system is that it is a bad idea.
Other than the possibility of some financial gain I do not believe a school district with the population and geographical size of MBRSD would benefit from going to a single bus run. As Mr. Leavitt points out the school district will have to initially spend money on the purchase of four new buses at an approximate cost of $95,000 each. This equates to a $380,000 increase to a budget line in one year, assuming they are bought outright and not under a lease purchase agreement over a period of, say, five years. If a lease purchase is done you will pay interest on $380,000, but will not pay out such a large amount in one year.
My point to this is that buying new buses will offset any initial savings in the fuel budget line. Also keep in mind that the current fleet of buses is aging and each year buses get cycled out and new buses need to replace the old ones. Keeping buses on the road longer is also not a good idea because a lot of the buses are already 15-plus years old with 250,000 plus miles on them.
The next concern I have with changing to a single bus run is that students may have to walk further to a bus stop. When I was employed with the district, its policy was to have students in kindergarten to eighth grade walk up to a half mile to a bus stop and students in grades 9-12 would have to walk up to one mile to a bus stop. The district’s policies may change to allow walking distances to increase to reduce the number of stops. Furthermore, students living within a certain radius of the school they attend may be ineligible to ride the bus in order to alleviate any overcrowding concerns. There may also be roads in rural parts of the district that buses currently travel that they will no longer travel causing parents to have to shuttle the children to the nearest intersection to wait for a bus.
Having been in a management position I will tell you that many parents complained about their children walking to and from the bus stops especially in low light conditions and on bad roads. Parents have threatened lawsuits if something had happened. This would cause the district to enter into costly litigation and this will happen. Add litigation and the life of a child to a budget line please.
Next, disciplinary action. This was an everyday occurrence. The disciplinary issues of the older students were usually very different from disciplinary issues with younger students. You are likely to see an increase in bullying on the school buses. The district has taken many steps to prevent bullying in the school building, but when they step on to the bus it will go out the window. Buses will also become filled to capacity. For a full size bus that is 84 passengers and, yes, there will be routes that have the 84 passengers on them. When I looked into a one run system in 2008, I was filling buses to capacity and slightly above capacity (betting on daily absences, parent rides, etc). Today, I believe the buses run a little over half capacity depending on the route.
Last, but certainly not least, is the impact on your bus drivers. MBRSD has many bus drivers that have been in that profession for 15 to 20-plus years. Reducing their work days and eliminating their benefits will crush moral and cause a high turnover rate. How many of you can survive on 4.5 hours a day of pay? You will lose the quality of service you currently have because new bus drivers will be hired who do not know your children and do not know the bus routes. Residents of MRRSD: this is a slap in the face to the people who get up before the sun to try to get an old bus warmed up and serviceable to take your children to and from school. Until you have actually driven a bus route you will never know what an incredible responsibility these drivers take each day, not to mention the compassion they show to your children.
These men and women have transported your precious cargo safely every school day, they have fought road rage, taken roadside ridicule from parents and cleaned your child’s vomit off the bus floor and seats. They deserve better than that.
In conclusion, I encourage administrators, board members, concerned citizens and bus drivers to work together to come up with a plan that will not adversely affect students, employees or taxpayers. You have a rough road ahead of you, but if you do the right thing for the right reason you will see a positive result.
Nathan Reid
Strong, Maine
Thanks, Mr. Reid. Cutting the bus drivers to part time is just not a good move in a community. We need career people taking this responsibility not people trying to decide whether or not to apply at Wal-Mart the other part-time employer in the area. I was for the idea until I read in the last article in the DB that it would take away needed benefits from respected members of our community. Sorry I can’t support hammering the people as a result of a budget crunch….
Start by hiring a superintendent that doesnt give his work to the assistant and commute to UMaine to teach finance. Why doesn’t the board open their eyes and see an easy cut right there
Nate, after reading your article and seeing you wrote it I decide I had to go and find out more about this issue. I have to agree with you on the fact that the two tier system is the better one. I did go to two different school systems and one did the single bus model and the other had the two tier system.
On the single bus model it seemed the older kids wanted to get home or at least out of school district property so they sat there and relaxed. The younger kids caused the problem of screaming and jumping into different seats. It would get so bad that the driver couldn’t focus on the road and would have to stop just to get the kids to shut-up. Let me tell you having a normal hour bus ride doubled because of a loud 1st grader didn’t sit well with the older kids.
On the two tier system I was shocked by the stuff that went on at bus. Yes I was part of stuff going on but in no way should young kids be part of that (the language would make a sailor blush and that wasn’t the worst going on).
My child will be going to school in a few years and if the single bus model is in place I think think I will be driving him to school until he is in middle school.
Would someone please elaborate on a superintendent that gives his work to the assistant and commutes to UMaine to teach finance! That’s unbelievable! I’m sure he’s not working by the hour. So we are paying him to take a second job?
Transporting children is one of the most important jobs there is. And you want to trust it to someone happy with 4.5 hrs/day? Yes, please elaborate on the superintendent and other useless staff in the administration. I’m sure you could find greater savings by cutting here.
I thought everyone knew this. He’s been doing it for years as far as I know. Bring it up at the next school board meeting. You may as well get it straight from the horse’s mouth.
His assistants do all the grant writing and professional development work around the district. I never knew what it was that the big guy was supposed to be doing except budget writing. BUT I know that if you commute to a second job there’s no way you have the energy to put 100 plus thousand dollars worth of effort into what a community is paying you to do. Raise questions! (I’m not in a position to speak at a schoolboard meeting
but many of you are)
1. When will Americans see that outsourcing is bad and has a cost. When Franklin County only has part time jobs to offer, where will the tax revenue come from? We need to appreciate the complexity of the issues at hand and not just throw simple solutions at them as simple solutions can be devastating. Michael Crichton’s Speech on Complexity can bring a deeper understanding of this. Crichton’s Yellowstone National Park example showed how people’s good intentions and fast solutions where devastating to the park because the ranger’s didn’t understand the problem and were actually contributing to making it worse. The single bus run and outsourced custodians seems like a clear case of not understanding the entire ecosystem that is the Franklin County economy, as the district RECEIVES money from it’s taxpayers and does not make money. Now what happens when you eliminate people’s ability to pay taxes?
2. The attack on the superintendent is unfounded and hearsay. Lots of districts the size of MBRSD have an assistant superintendent (or now a curriculum coordinator). It’s too much for one person to do and the position is something the board votes on…the superintendent can’t just invent a position and fund it. Trust me, you don’t want the super’s job as it’s increasingly more difficult in these times. The superintendent is a DOCTOR. If I have a doctorate, I expect 6 figures…especially when I’ve been doing it long enough to retire. The doctor has lead MBRSD into being one of, if not the, best district’s in the state. He deserves his salary just as a hot-headed, narrow-minded 50K a year leader would cost the district many times over the 6 figure salary.
3. The district had ZERO to do with the current financial crisis…it is only victim to it. It’s your life-time senators and capital hill lobbyists that are responsible and you should be asking how they are performing their jobs and let education alone. This is the 4th year in a row that we’re cutting education, yet it’s this country’s savior.
4. Education is tapped, leave it alone and let your investment pay dividends. The real savings can be found in legalizing drugs. Over 50% of our prison population consists of non-violent drug offenders. I’d much rather have them on the streets than our kids. Studies show that our prison system is pretty useless and doesn’t rehabilitate…and it’s costing Maine $44,000 a YEAR per PRISONER!! Almost twice as much as any other state. How does it cost 44k a prisoner when most of use don’t make that a year? Yes, a prisoner in Maine cost 15K more a year to the Maine taxpayer than a teacher and half of those prisoners never hurt anyone other than themselves.
5. Reduce government and increase community control. Right now, whether it’s non-profit, government, or education, every committee spends because if they don’t, the money will go somewhere else and they’ll get less next year. This is a huge problem! There should be a reward for saving money and not a penalty. The government does not make money!! We give them our money. The less the government is involved, the less waste. Come on, when there’s a guy with question mark all over his suit on TV advertising how to get “free money” from the government, you know we’ve gone wrong. We need to get back to where the money feels real. If Franklin County was given a budget and all the savings from that budget went back into Franklin County tax payers pockets, then you’d would be cooking with gas. As it is right now, we feel like we have no control. We’re mandated on how we’re going to do everything…and we pay for the oversight right up the ladder to Washington. Put control back in the hands of the community and you’ll make huge head way in budget control and will greatly reduce waste, bureaucratic costs and reduce corruption.
6. Let technology work for you. How drastically has technology changed in the last 10 years? The last 5 years? But has it drastically changed where it can make difference? Why aren’t more telecommuting and reducing our need of buildings? Why am I still registering my dog in person? My car? Why aren’t people staying home where they have already paid for the heat, electricity, phone, and Internet? I don’t know where I’m going with that, but it seems like we have a lot of processes that could be streamlined. Our kids get out in the summer, for what? I’m sorry, but they aren’t farming. They’re sitting around forgetting half of what they learned. while we’re heating all of our schools all winter and paying to light the buildings when natural light is around the least.
There’s lots of things we can do and lots of things that we shouldn’t do. Eliminating jobs and tax revenue is like cutting off your thumb and calling yourself lighter. Fight the good fight, but know that knowledge and understanding are king.
Hey there, I have to say I totally agree with you. I’m a student at MBHS and I know that already on the two tier bus rides, things are getting over crowed. First off, I live in Wilton, so its a long drive home, I believe there are only two buses that go to wilton, both being very crowed. This has only gotten worse due to the addition of booster seats for smaller kids who take the bus later in the morning, ( For pre Schoolers so we’ve been told ). Since High schoolers and Middle Schoolers aren’t allowed to sit in them or in an unoccupied seat behind them we lost about eight or more seats on our already crowded bus. I understand why they did this but it’s already Hell to get home from school. We have to wait for the middle schoolers and once our bus arrives it drops us off at Academy Hill school from which I have to walk between a mile and half a mile home, up hill, carrying algebra books and laptops ( I once weighed by backpack and got a lovely total of 30lbs on somedays, and 40lbs on others. ), and it is not fun when it’s raining. I arrive home around 3:00pm, when I get out at 2:00. It isn’t too bad for living in a more rural area of Maine, but I can only imagine of the untold horrors of the time it would take with all the busses clogging the streets at once. All the small screaming children we once were to be slipped in with all the loud and crude teenagers, could only end badly. I love knowing and supporting my bus driver and I honestly can say the only gain I see is that I may get to sleep in an extra hour. Not a big enough gain from my standpoint.