Hillsborough Schools Won't Alter Bus Routes Next Year

Schools won't alter bus routes next year
By Letitia Stein, Times staff writer Published Monday, October 27, 2008 10:16 PM
TAMPA — After botching the rollout of bus route changes this fall, Hillsborough school officials are calling off plans for more sweeping revisions next year.
That affects families around New Tampa, the university area, Brandon and Plant City — all slated for overhaul next year. Now the families should be spared the confusion the rest of the county experienced.
Superintendent MaryEllen Elia said Monday that the district will spend the next year making sure buses are running smoothly in the communities where routes already were revamped.
"We recognize that there were issues with the implementation of the changes," she said. "I don't want to add any additional areas to the stress for next year."
She pledged to have the school bus system, which transports 90,000 students daily, working as efficiently as possible before going into the remaining parts of the county to finish up the route changes.
School officials are still diagnosing what went wrong this fall. They produced a long list of shortcomings Monday morning during a School Board workshop on the topic.
Parents are only too familiar with many of the troubles cited.
Scores of families never received letters mailed over the summer detailing student bus route information. With schools similarly in the dark, parents flooded the phone lines at a transportation call center unequipped for such volume.
Ultimately, school officials increased staffing at the call center and parents could get through without long waits. But the officials heard outrage from the community. The district plans to improve communication efforts next year.
That's not to say that parents can expect to hear the answers they want. The district fielded many complaints about children who no longer qualify for free rides because they live too far from school. With money tight, that "courtesy busing'' is unlikely to come back soon. Other children will continue to walk farther to bus stops.
John Franklin, Hillsborough's general director of transportation, sees some positives amid the problems. He noted that Hills­borough has eliminated 3,000 bus stops. It is doing a better job of filling buses with students and getting them to school on time.
He said the department learned many lessons from this year's failures, including the need to have better internal systems to track students and revisions to bus routes.
The district has dispatched a team to identify every breakdown in this year's transportation program. A report and recommendations are expected in December.
Some remaining issues won't come as a surprise.
"If tomorrow was the first day of school, what would still be our biggest challenges?" board member Doretha Edgecomb asked.
"The communication piece," Franklin answered without hesitation. "Making sure that everyone is aware of what we're doing and why we're doing it."
Letitia Stein can be reached at lstein@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3400. For more education news, visit the Gradebook at blogs.tampabay.com/schools.
>>FAST FACTS
Affected areas
Hillsborough school officials are phasing in bus route changes in seven geographic areas in the district. To see which area your school is located in, visit www.sdhc.k12.fl.us/AreaDirectors.
Time line for bus route changes:
2007-08: Pilot in Area 5 (southeast Hillsborough).
2008-09: Rollout in Areas 1, 2 and 4 (South and central Tampa and northwest Hillsborough).
2009-10: Rollout called off for Areas 3, 6 and 7 (New Tampa, the university area, northeast Hillsborough).
2010-11: Tentative final rollout for remaining three areas.

Hillsborough District Continues To Roll Out Bus System Fixes

Hillsborough District Continues To Roll Out Bus System Fixes
By MARILYN BROWN The Tampa Tribune
Published: October 27, 2008
TAMPA - Families in Plant City, Brandon, New Tampa and the area around King High School likely won't deal with the transportation changes next year that put other areas in chaos this year.
"The recommendation for next year is not to add any areas," Hillsborough Superintendent MaryEllen Elia said today during a school board workshop on transportation.
Problems are still being analyzed, six members of the Hillsborough County School Board learned when they gathered for a workshop at 9 a.m. today.
Next up are focus groups in November with drivers, exceptional student education staff, magnet program staff, principals, some school staff and parents. Board member Doretha Edgecomb asked that students also be included.
The district's transportation department came under fire even before schools opened Aug. 18. Phone lines were jammed, and hundreds of parents couldn't get through to get information on bus stop changes even after school opened.
To save money and be more efficient, the district has been phasing in a new plan that places bus stops farther apart, halts courtesy bus service to many families who live less than two miles from their school and also cut bus service to many private day care centers after school.
Planned changes include a Web site that will allow parents to view their bus stops before the 2009-10 school year begins, although how that will work remains a question. The district's transportation chief, John Franklin, said today that the system the district is considering would require parents to register and receive a user name and password to access their child's bus stop information.
A major problem this year was keeping bus stop information from schools so school staff wouldn't have to deal with it. Parents were told to call the transportation call center, which was overwhelmed with calls.
The eight people originally answering those calls put people on hold while they tried to get answers to questions instead of just taking numbers, Deputy Superintendent Ken Otero said.
"They were trying to answer the question then," Otero said, leaving other callers unable to get through.
Along with early notification of stops next year, a new system handling calls will be in effect, Franklin said.
Many callers this year simply wanted a return to bus service they got in the past or a change in bus stops, Franklin said. After the meeting he estimated there have been 300 requests for changes to bus stops, with about 50 approved.
The district still is short 178 permanent bus drivers, he said. Board members suggested an incentive plan to encourage driver attendance.
Also planned is having drivers practice proposed routes before the first day of school to identify problems, a practice that was routine in past years.
A committee is looking at school bell times to see whether adjustments need to be made to make transportation run more smoothly.
Reporter Marilyn Brown can be reached at (813) 259-8069 mbrown@tampatrib.com.



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