Washington Township students could see longer bus rides next school year

Washington Township students could have longer bus rides next school year as the district plans to reroute buses to account for fewer drivers and a new central bus depot.

The district has been looking for ways to avoid some of the transportation problems they faced this year over the lack of drivers that strained their ability to get kids to school on time.

To better prepare for next school year, district leaders said at a recent board meeting that they are planning bus routes for around 85 drivers instead of their ideal scenario which would be around 115 drivers.

Fewer routes mean routes will likely be longer. But it’s still too soon to tell how much longer students may have to ride to or from school as the rerouting process is just beginning, Rebecka Smith, Washington Township’s chief business officer told IndyStar.

This school year was the first year that the district implemented new start times for all its schools to allow older students to start school later in the day after a multi-year study and research revealed the benefits for teens if they start school later in the day.

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In Washington Township, elementary schools start the school day followed by high schools then middle schools. Smith said the district isn’t looking at changing that order but may expand the time in between school start times to give drivers more time to pick up kids and drop them off at the schools.

The combination of the lack of drivers, ongoing construction in the city, the district’s own capital improvement projects, and traffic patterns all contribute to making buses late in the morning, Smith said.

A need for more drivers persists

Smith said that the district has averaged around 85-90 bus drivers this school year and has also seen an above-average amount of drivers calling in sick to work from day to day.

In the month of January alone, Smith told school board members last week at their regular board meeting that the district averaged between four to eight drivers calling out of work per day.

Those absences along with the decreased number of drivers in general has strained the district’s transportation functions and created a stressful work environment for drivers, Superintendent Nikki Woodson said.

“[The drivers] are feeling that crunch all by itself even if every driver showed up every day,” Woodson said during the board meeting. “That would be a pressure point all by itself, but that plus natural absences creates a very stressful work environment.”

The district has lost 19 drivers since the start of this school year to either resignations, terminations, or retirements, Shaunna Redd, the assistant director of human resources at the district, told IndyStar.

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Redd said the district has tried to address those concerns drivers may have through multiple listening sessions, surveys and advisory committees on which drivers now sit.

The impact of the bus driver shortage is felt across Marion County and has forced some school districts to change elementary school enrollment boundaries like Perry Township school district did in December.

Other transportation changes coming to the district

Adding to the need to redraw bus routes, next school year the district plans to centralize all its buses on the North Central High School campus instead of the east and west sides of the district from where buses leave now.

Smith said this will hopefully alleviate problems in the morning if a route suddenly lacks a driver since now all buses will leave from the same place.

The district is also working on changing how drivers get to bid on the routes they will do for the school year, centering routes around a certain school or area of the district to make it easier for drivers to cover one another if one misses work.

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"Instead of just having sporadic miscellaneous people filling in, we plan to have a strategic plan in place for families and drivers to feel more comfortable if they have to cover a combination of routes from someone's absence," Smith said.

Smith also said the district will work to get the new routes to drivers earlier in the year so that they can conduct dry-runs and provide feedback on how to improve the routes.

Contact IndyStar reporter Caroline Beck at 317-618-5807 or CBeck@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter: @CarolineB_Indy.

Caroline’s work is supported by Report for America and Glick Philanthropies. As part of its work in Marion County, Glick Philanthropies partners with organizations focused on closing access and achievement gaps in education.

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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Washington Township school bus driver shortage leads to route changes