Goshen considers new busing format

Apr. 12—GOSHEN — The Goshen Community Schools Board of Trustees is considering a busing change that would impact school start times for each of the schools in the district, student rider discipline and district finances.

"There is going to be a continued shortage of drivers in the future," said Don Graves, transportation director for Goshen Community Schools. "We have some drivers that have left for a different profession and we have drivers that are retiring at the end of the year."

In addition to this, tighter restrictions for obtaining commercial drivers licenses, including increased instructional time for school drivers and tracking of job history for potential bus drivers as a safety precaution by the federal government, is also projected to continue to the bus driver shortage.

Substitute drivers, office staff and even a bus mechanic of the district have filled in the gaps at an increased cost to the district.

The current schedule requires 35 drivers, split between two schedules. Goshen High School, Model Elementary and Chandler Elementary drivers are also running double routes.

"GIS (Goshen Intermediate School) and elementary are currently sharing transportation on their buses. We will go to the elementary and transport them to GIS," Graves said. "It creates a little bit of a shorter educational time for GIS and we're trying to work at correcting that also. ... We've encountered some disciplinary issues with large numbers of students on the buses too."

The three-tier model would require each bus driver to transport each tier (elementary, junior high and high school along with intermediate). It would take about 45 minutes per tier. Currently, drivers can only take two routes. This will decrease the number of students per bus, allowing the district to double buses when drivers are out, and shorten routes. Students in the second tier, high school and intermediate, will not ride together. Buses will be split at that point, hopefully cutting down on disciplinary problems.

To achieve this, however, school start times will have to change.

Currently, the elementary schools are in class from 7:40 a.m. to 2:40 p.m., intermediate is 7:55 a.m. to 2:25 p.m., junior high is 8:30 a.m. to 3:45 p.m., and high school is 8:25 a.m. to 3:35 p.m.

On the three-tier schedule, the elementary start time and drop-off time would be 7:30 a.m., high school and intermediate would be 8:15 a.m., and junior high would be 9 a.m. This, in addition to the removal of all late arrival and early release days, would add 55 minutes to elementary schedules, and 40 minutes to secondary schools on Wednesdays.

Start times and drop-off times would be the same, Graves noted. He explained that students would get off the bus around the same time the bell rings, gather their things and their breakfast, and quickly move to the classroom.

Board members questioned the suggested start-time protocol, explaining that getting through the car line can't be done in such a short amount of time.

"Our goal is to try to make riding the bus as attractive as possible," Graves said. In the current system, some students are forced to sit three to four in a seat, which is unsafe, and encourages behavioral problems, another reason Graves suggests for parents choosing not to put their children on the bus.

The proposed scheduling also decreases the total number of hours students are at school for all but the intermediate, who are currently in attendance for only 6.5 hours, while others range from 7 hours to 7.25 hours. The state requirement for credit for the day is 5 hours for elementary, and 6 hours for secondary. The three-tier schedule puts each school in attendance for 6.83 hours per day.

According to Graves, South Bend Community Schools and Dekalb Community Schools may be the only two local schools running a three-tier system, although Concord Community Schools runs a four-tier system.

There is also a cost-saving associated with the proposed model. Graves explained, with buses running about an hour and a half longer than before, an additional 10 extra hours per week would be paid to each driver, impacting payroll by roughly $57,000 per year. The increase in hours would also mean drivers are working at least 30 hours a week and therefore qualify them for health insurance. For the 10 bus drivers, this would increase the health insurance cost for the school to $65,000. The total cost increase would be $122,000 for the 2022-2023 school year.

However, by not replacing the expected five drivers who aren't expected to return next year and overtime by the mechanic when he is subbing, the school district would save roughly $140,000, so the cost change would actually save the district about $18,000 based on the current year's information, he said.

No decision was made during the Monday night meeting.

Dani Messick is the education and entertainment reporter for The Goshen News. She can be reached at dani.messick@goshennews.com or at 574-538-2065.