Ramsey Resident - 1984 - November

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----..-.....------ Ramsey Resident - November, 1984 - Page 3 Although state law requires school districts to transport students living more' than a . mile from school, the district can receive special funds to bus students living less than, a mile away if they must walk through an area considered hazardous, "For example, we bus students to Roosevelt Junior High who live just on the other side of State High- way 242 even thbugh they are much closer than a' mile away," said Miller, "There is just too much traffic for them to cross 242," she said, Determining which areas are hazardous enough to merit transportation is sometimes .difficult. Mc- Closkey and"Miller will often observe a site for awhile to - get a feel for the traffic at cer- tain times of day. They also take into consideration fac- tors such as accident rates, availability of sidewalks, visibility, etc. Establisl1.ing routes is only part of the job. The start of each school year brings a flood of calls into the Transportation Department. Lois Bratt and - Jackie Spaulding, secretaries in the department, handle many of the phone calls, answering the ones they can and pass- ing the rest on to Miller or Mc- Closkey. Continued to page 4 Lyle McCloskey and Delores Miller figure out how to get 28,000 students to school and home each day. Bus. system explained How do you transport 28,000 students to 40 dif- ferent schools - public and nonpublic - and then bring them back, home again through snow and sleet and construction zones? 'You pick them up at 12,000 stops, put them on 162 buses, and drive them' 17,000 miles each day. Sound like a big job? It is.. Organizing bus, routes to make certain all students liv- i n gin A n 0 k a - H-e n n e pin Schopl District No. 11 can get to school and back home is a task of Lyle McCloskey, tran- sportation director, and Delores Miller, transportation assistant. "We start by placing every child on a map and then figur- ing out the most logical bus . routes," said Mille'r. It sounds simple but in doing that they must take many factors into consideration - how many students live .in a specific area, where the bus stops should be located to pi9k up students as quickly as possi- ble, how safe students will be waiting at particular stops. and much more. And to make the system as cost effective as possible, they must consider how,toar- range the system in order for buses to drive as many routes as possible and still get students to school on time. Because the school district pays bus companies on a per- bus/per-day rather than a per- route basis, the more routes that can be driven with each bus, the lower the cost to the taxpayer. Although the ave- rage number of routes driven each morning by a bus is 2.8, some buses cover as many as five different' schools in' a single morning. The same basic routes can be used from 'year to year, but there are always modifica- tions to make. New housing construction, road construc- tion, boundary changes, and fluctuation for the numbers of students living in particular areas all have an impact on routes, according to Mc. Closkey and Miller. Ki ndergarten routes and those for nonpublic school students are redrawn fre- quently as the location of those students changes con- siderably from year to year. In addition to regular routes, the department must also arrange for after-school activity buses and transporta- tion for students in special programs. "When you consider the number of students trans- ported and the many thousands of bits of informa- tion they have to put together. to make the system work, the job they do is just tremen- dous," said Superintendent I . Lewis Finch. In some cases,.McCloskey and Miller have to deterr:nine who will walk as well as who will ride the bus to school. \. j rViJ ,j f ~ t ~ t .. vv V Win!! 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