"Boston schools pushing to keep buses on time; Changes follow 2 years of woes" by James Vaznis | Globe Staff, September 03, 2012
Superintendent Carol R. Johnson is determined to make sure that the chronically late buses that have defined the opening of the past two school years are history....
The true test will come this week with the start of the school year....
I've only just arrived.
“It’s just so incredibly important for this year to be different,” said Mary Tamer, a School Committee member who was one of the most outspoken critics of Johnson’s handling of the transportation crisis. “One of my biggest concerns was not only were students missing critical instructional time, thousands were also missing free or reduced-priced breakfasts. It’s very difficult for students with empty bellies to learn.”
There is also a lot on the line for Johnson herself, who is trying to regain her footing after revelations this summer about her support of a headmaster who admitted to sufficient facts after being charged with assaulting his wife.
Johnson is facing calls for her ouster from more than 200 parents, teachers, and at least one city councilor, who are upset that she wrote a letter of support for Rodney Peterson to a judge last summer and carried through with promoting him to co-headmaster of the O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science.
See: From Memphis to Massachusetts
To hell and back again?
She, however, still has strong support from Mayor Thomas M. Menino and several other city leaders, including the School Committee’s chairman, the Rev. Gregory Groover.
Chronically late buses have been among the biggest blemishes on Johnson’s five-year record of leading the Boston schools. An astonishing 37 percent of all buses ran as much as an hour late at the start of the last school year and she failed to quickly remedy the problem, prompting a few School Committee members at the end of October to declare a crisis as one out of four buses still ran late.
Even Menino intervened out of frustration, assigning one of his top aides to help fix a school transportation system he deemed to be “broken.”
Eventually, the School Department pushed up its on-time arrival performance to higher than 90 percent on most days in the last half of the school year, but it was no easy task.
The School Department operates a mammoth transportation system at a cost of more than $80 million, shuttling students across the city on more than 700 buses. With most buses running three separate trips in the morning and three more in the afternoon, a mistimed route can domino into later runs, creating one late stop after another and an onslaught of angry complaints from students, parents, principals, and teachers.
That is a scenario that repeatedly played out during the previous two school years. In 2010-11, the School Department and the drivers largely blamed the tardiness on a new computerized routing system that often grossly undercalculated the time for buses to travel routes in Boston’s often traffic-clogged streets and sometimes put buses on streets too narrow to navigate.
How much did taxpayers get took for the new computer software?
The department eventually fixed those routes, but then chaos of even larger proportions broke out last fall as school officials confronted what they called “a perfect storm.” In the months leading up to that school year, as it was still working through problems from the software program, the School Department decided to consolidate more than 1,500 routes, close and merge several schools, and increase transportation options for special education students.
If they don't know what they are doing how can they expect the kids to... sigh.
Making matters worse, school officials shortened the time frame to create, test, and modify the bus routes.
Ever cram for a test, kids?
School and city officials also blamed some bus drivers for showing up to work late, an accusation strongly contested by the drivers union.
Un-flipping-real!
They tried to BLAME the BUS DRIVERS!
In an effort to transform the transportation department into a point of pride instead of embarrassment, Johnson tapped Carl Allen about six months ago to be transportation director. He is an unusual pick; at 31, he has never managed a school transportation department.
But he did work for a while for the US Transportation Department on workforce development and studied transportation at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where he earned a master’s degree....
Allen has placed a strong emphasis on seeking the advice of drivers on creating the bus routes to see if computer-projected travel times match reality.
Asking the people that do the work, what a novel concept!
A big problem last year, pointed out by many drivers, is that many routes scheduled no time between stops and sometimes had drivers dropping kids off at school at the exact time they were supposed to be arriving on the first stop of their next route.
Well, maybe the kids can hop on as the bus drives by the stop.
Consequently, the union filed a grievance before even trying out the routes, because it was so obvious on paper that the School Department was destined to repeat “massive, systemwide chaos.”
Damn unions!
So far this year, the union has not filed such a grievance. More time between stops has been scheduled and routes increased to 3,642, almost 500 more than last fall.
“The routing does not seem to have the problems near the magnitude they had last September,” said Steve Kirschbaum, a driver and bus union representative. “I do believe the district has made an effort to correct the problems, but I will reserve judgment until we test the routes under real driving conditions.”
But regardless of the fixes the School Department makes, plotting routes will always be a challenge, Kirschbaum said.
“Boston is a tough transportation town — people know that; our roads
were engineered by cows,” he said, “and you have multiple streets with
the same name.”
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Yeah, riding along and giving it an eyeball is really going to fix things.
Honestly, readers, I'm a little tired of status-quo public relation pieces posing as news articles.
Yeah, riding along and giving it an eyeball is really going to fix things.
Honestly, readers, I'm a little tired of status-quo public relation pieces posing as news articles.
Related: More Hub school buses are punctual
Yaaaaaaaaay!
"A better year for Boston school bus arrivals; City overcoming chronic tardiness"by James Vaznis | Globe Staff, November 26, 2012
Boston school buses — chronically late last year, prompting a barrage of criticism from students, parents, and teachers — are increasingly arriving on time this fall.
Since the third week of school, at least 91 percent of buses have arrived each week before the morning bell, according to School Department data. For the most part, the on-time performance rates have steadily increased each week, hitting a high of 96.1 percent Thanksgiving week.
That is in sharp contrast to last fall, when on-time rates were below 80 percent for much of that time, causing the School Committee to declare a crisis as buses ran as much as an hour late.
“We keep getting better,” said Carl Allen, the school department’s transportation director. “The late buses we do see are because of traffic or the occasional accident, road construction, or an issue with a student.”
Superintendent Carol R. Johnson, who undertook an overhaul of the busing system last year, enacted a number of changes to improve the buses, most notably naming a new transportation director, drawing up routes earlier, and cross-referencing computer-generated travel times with drivers’ knowledge of the streets and problem intersections.
Officials point to the improved performance as evidence that they have finally figured out how to devise routes that better reflect the time it truly takes to traverse the city’s traffic-clogged streets during rush hour.
Not everyone, though, is declaring victory.
Steve Kirschbaum, a driver and chairman of the grievance committee for the school bus drivers union, said some routing problems persist....
Party-pooping union folk again!
But Dumond Louis, president of the bus drivers union, downplayed the issues....
Way to stand behind your man.
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Also see:
Police ride school buses in Haverhill amid fears
Woman, 20, killed by school bus
