Students On City Buses A Poorly Executed Plan
Dear Editor,
I am writing in response to the recent decision by the superintendent of Guilford County Schools (GCS) to replace bus transportation by the district with city buses for select high schools. I thought it was a feasible idea. The city buses need ridership and the schools were in need of buses with drivers. Many large cities utilize city transportation services for students, many younger than high schoolers.
The problem lies in the execution of the plan. First, one would need to analyze the feasibility of getting students to bus stops from their homes and make sure there are bus routes that run to the schools. Perhaps some modifications would need to be made to the bus routes by the city. That would be easy enough based on the benefit to the city transport system in increased ridership. The district would also want to know how many students a change of this magnitude would impact.
Then you run the plan by the Board of Education, as they are responsible to the taxpayers to oversee what happens in the schools. I know the superintendent has control over day-to-day operations but a change like this is not really standard operating process.
You then work to sell the parents and the students on the concept in an open, transparent manner.
What you don’t do is drop the plan in the parent’s lap on Friday afternoon for a Monday morning implementation without a discussion by the Board of Education. That is exactly what was done on Jan. 7 by Guilford County Schools.
This situation is a prime example of lack of leadership with GCS. A superintendent who is supposed to be the employee of the Board of Education putting such an extensive plan into place without even consulting the board or acknowledging student families is the reason there is such chaos in our schools. This was a manufactured emergency that could have been a wonderful opportunity for the BOE, superintendent and GCS families to work together with the cities to being a solution to an issue they all faced.
Selena Kelley
Or you do what we did in the 1960s and 1970s in the cities before integration, you got to school on your own!
Can your believe Contreras is a good example of what’s referred to a being elevated to to the level of incompetence or “the Peter principle “ .She was doing a sloppy job at the Guilford County Schools.There were 4 members of the board that wanted to terminate her.But no she was give. This cushy job and was bailed out..Why didn’t these people get a competent individual to run their job.Some point in the near future we’ll probably read that she has left this job for a more cushy in Washington or maybe NY if they’ll have her back.
It’s time to clean out the 5 people on the board that voted to Keep Contreras.
Well made observation. So much from GCS policy changes seem last minute. I heard rumor that GCS will go remote learning due to snow. No early communitcation, no real plan, just a knee jerk response to a storm we all have saw coming. This is a symtom of a leadership that controls ALL decisions. Once decision is made…too late to execute properly. A better lrader would have plans in place.
It’s literally the “plan” for every snow…to close school, but that was before virtual was an option…everyone knows how to access virtual lessons AND every student was provided a device. GCS made the decision to go remote at lunchtime yesterday. Plans ARE in place.
Thanks for that clarity. So parents had how much advance notice? Given that many families have two working parents and childcare are already an issue, now they need to make sure their childcare can handle remote learning setups. Why isn’t the plan more clearly communicated for example….after two snow days, the third day automatically shifts to in-home learning? Something more predicable that makes planning easier for parents?
I attended Grimsley (GHS) years ago when I was there as a student. School buses did not run in my part of town, east Greensboro, so I and several other neighborhood kids walked to the nearest Duke Power bus stop and caught the bus to downtown. After a half hour layover we transferred to another bus that took us to a stop at the school. In the afternoon the process was reversed. We paid for the fares.
Bill Knight
Former Mayor
Bill: You are correct. As I said above, before integration in High Point, there were no school buses. You had three choices to get to school. Your parents or a neighbor brought you by car, you rode the public bus at your cost or you walked. And if you missed the bus, there was not a “late bus” to come pick you up. If you did not get to school, you were counted absent. If you missed too many days, guess who came knocking at your door? The truant officer! Do we even have these anymore? I would guess not. The school system is always crying about the need for more money, can you imagine the savings if we did not pick students up in front of their homes and had “pickup points”? Again, we made it through, graduated and grew up. The system does nothing but baby these kids. It is time for a change.
At least in a few more months the superintendent will be gone – thank goodness. On to Raleigh to ruin another non-profit!
I think the important message the original letter was making was that there had been no time for parents or kids to adjust to a new plan of transportation. Yes, kids can adjust to a new mode of transportation to school, whether it’s walking, carpooling, parents or them driving themselves, or city bus. But they were notified with only a weekend to plan and no information on how the city buses would accommodate their kids, if buses would drop kids at the school, if pick-up would be at their normal school bus stop or regular city routes, if pick-up times would be adjusted for school hours, etc. Those are issues that should have been thought out, addressed, and questions answered for parents even though high schoolers were the only ones involved. (Was any thought given to the legal issues involved if a student decided to get off at a stop that wasn’t theirs to go home with a friend without permission, get on a bus that didn’t go to their home stop without permission, was taken or assaulted by a stranger waiting at a city stop – as there are generally only students at school bus stops, if students assault a driver or start a fight on the city bus and hurt other passengers? These are questions I’d have if I were a parent.)
Yes, kids in other places ride city transportation all the time, but they have done that for years and are used to doing so. Kids here and now aren’t accustomed to doing so and need time to learn how. Most 16-year-olds don’t know how to drive anymore either. This means someone else has to drive them to school. And as I learned when I first moved here most kids don’t walk to school because there aren’t sidewalks in a lot of neighborhoods and rural areas.
This was a last minute decision because of other dumb decisions made by the state, county, city, the school board recently (no, I won’t discuss that here, they’re my opinions). As a result, there aren’t enough bus drivers for the buses. An alternative is needed but one that is planned ahead of time and introduced to parents, kids, and whatever transport system so that it can be safely implemented on the first day and work without it being a total mess as seems to be usual with the schools and local government.