School board examines bus service
BY PAM BRANNON Gulf Breeze News news@gulfbreezenews.com

When Hurricane Ivan hit, it seemed to blow away a lot of Santa Rosa County’s bus drivers. That was the sentiment of Bobbie Williams, Branch Manager of the school’s contracted transportation company, Laidlaw Education Systems, Inc. But now, for the first time since Ivan, Laidlaw has 23 percent of its drivers listed as “bench,” or substitute, drivers, according to the report Williams gave to the Santa Rosa County School District (SRCSD) at the last meeting. That is a goal they have been trying to reach for some months.

“I am ecstatic about that,” Williams said.

SRCSD contracts with Laidlaw to hire and supervise most of the bus drivers for the school district. Williams reported that at the end of the 2005- 2006 school year they had 17 bench drivers countywide. Now, as of this month, they have 56 and 36 of those finished their training and were hired within the last quarter. More are also in training now.

There are now 19 people in the south end of the county as bench drivers. That makes it easier on North End drivers who don’t have to travel to cover bus routes, Williams pointed out. School Board member Ed Gray III of Gulf Breeze asked what did Laidlaw think made the difference with so many new hires within one quarter, after needing drivers for so long.

“Well, we did a mail out saying we needed drivers and we have never done that before. That brought a lot of interest and a lot of questions,” said Williams. “The main thing we heard was people saying they had no idea we needed drivers. Over the past couple months we are now getting retired people, or people getting ready to retire. We are getting some good quality people — people who want to drive bus for other reasons than just the money. We are getting people who show up for work every day. I enjoy seeing people that enjoy coming in to work every day to drive school bus.”

Williams did say they are still interviewing and still have some drivers just finishing up their training.

“Getting through the holidays is often tough,” he said. “Sometimes we lose several drivers over the holidays. So we will see how we fare in January, when school starts again.”

The report showed the south end Laidlaw office is fully staffed now, with the recent hiring of a new Supervisor of the south end buses, Roger Bell, and the hiring Dec. 4 of an administrative assistant for the South End.

“We also now have a dispatcher who is from Gulf Breeze and knows the area really well,” Williams said. “Roger Bell is doing a great job. Everything is running so much smoother since we hired him.”

Gray III said, “ I had a message on my phone while I was out of town a couple weeks ago from a parent in the South End, very upset about an incident with a bus. But by the time I called her back, the incident had already been taken care of and she was a happy camper, very happy with the quick response and solution she had received about the problem. I believe the name she mentioned was Mr. Bell. I was very pleased to see that someone was

right on top of it, and things are running smoother than it has for a while down there, I believe.”

Williams said, “We are really pleased with Roger and the progress he is making in the South End.”

The Board asked what shape some of the buses were in and how long before some would need replacement. Williams said there are seven new units on the lot now, among the 240 buses they run in the county.

School Board President Hugh Winkles told Williams,” We appreciate the work you all have done on this issue of substitute bus drivers, and that you have done what we asked you to do.”

Laidlaw Education System, Inc. started with Santa Rosa County School District in July 1998. It now runs 240 buses here and employs 380 people in the county. Santa Rosa County is one of 1,000 counties nationwide that contracts with Laidlaw, who operates over 43,000 buses every day transporting school children.