County to get 209 new school buses; drivers address concerns
BY PAM BRANNON Gulf Breeze News pam@gulfbreezenews.com

Rogers

Santa Rosa County School buses will be brand-new from the factory next August, and have a new name on the side, also.

The school board approved a contract last week with Durham School Services of Illinois to replace First Student as the contractor that will offer bus transportation for the county's 27,000 public school students for the next five years at least.

Since the board also approved three-tier scheduling for next year, allowing staggered school start times and necessitating fewer buses, the contract with Durham adds up to just over $7 million for the first year. That contract will include Durham providing 209 brand-new buses made especially for Santa Rosa School District for its 209 routes.

Those buses will all include GPS tracking systems, air conditioning, and digital cameras.

This year, the school district paid $10.8 million to Laidlaw (now First Student) with only 50 new buses added to the older fleet each year of the 10-year contract. The school board added air conditioners to some of the older buses each year at their own expense, over and above contract costs.

Photo by Pam Brannon Santa Rosa County School District transportation director Joey Harrell (left) talks with bus drivers about the implications of the three-tier schedules that will take effect in August.

After the school board approved the change in contractors, District Superintendent John Rogers addressed the general manager for the local office of First Student, Bobbie Williams.

"You and your company have served us very well for the last 10 years," Rogers said. "You have done everything we asked you to do. We appreciate everything you and your staff have done.

"But competition being what it is, and money being tight as it is, our search committee had to recommend the most for the dollar for our next contract cycle, and that meant a change this year."

Most of the overflow crowd, including a large number of school bus drivers, gave Williams and his staff a standing ovation.

Rogers then asked all school bus drivers attending the meeting to go to an upstairs lobby with the district's transportation director Joey Harrell and a representative of Durham Services - Director of Business Development Greg Walter - who had flown in from South Carolina for the meeting. Rogers said the school bus drivers would be given an opportunity to ask questions of the two

men.

Many of the drivers in the

overflow crowd went with the transportation directors. Questions and answers included:

Q: What size buses will these

be and who makes them?

Durham's answer: 'They

will all be 72-passenger buses. They are being factory made as we speak, and ordered from Thomas bus manufacturer. They will not be flat-nosed, but traditional style.'

Q: Will all bus drivers keep their jobs? Or will 50 drivers lose their jobs with less routes next year?

School district's answer: 'No, 50 drivers will NOT lose jobs. There has been a problem keeping a substitute driver's bench each year, which is supposed to be 20 percent of total routes. And there is always a loss of drivers over the summer, from retirements or sickness or moves. And some drivers may not want the extra hours it would mean to run three routes each morning and again each afternoon, so they may prefer to be part of the bench. So with all that taken into consideration, no one is expected to lose their job.'

Q: Rumor has it that Durham is bringing in a load of new drivers and staff. Is that true?

Durham's answer: 'No, that is not true. Durham is bringing in a load of new buses, not drivers. They are hoping to keep as many local drivers as possible, as well as supervisors and staff. There will be a new general manager from outside the area, to be interviewed and approved among several general managers by the local school board.

BUT, drivers will have to fill out application forms again, and be fingerprinted again as they were when they first got their jobs. Letters will go out within the next two weeks inviting all drivers to an orientation meeting. At that meeting packets will be distributed with necessary forms.

Then near the end of school there will be a "hiring event", where current county school bus drivers are invited to bring their paperwork and go through physicals with doctors onsite that day.

The main reason you would not be hired by Durham would be if you are a grumpy person who cannot get along with anyone, especially kids or their parents. You have to like the kids you drive for, and treat them with respect. That is the most important criteria we have.'

Q: Will there be pay cuts - or possibly pay raises?

Durham's answer: Numbers for Santa Rosa County have already been "plugged in", and Walter said, "It looks like everyone from the staff to drivers would receive a nice raise. I can tell you that much. We have often found that when a district has a problem keeping a bench of substitute drivers, it means the company paying them is behind the market pay grade. So we keep our drivers and staff as close to the top of that pay grade as we can get." He said Durham also pays monthly bonuses to drivers for meeting goals such as attendance and safe driving.

Q: Will drivers keep their old routes, or will each route be placed on the bidding block again - and how will those routes change?

School district's answer: The first way all routes will change next year is fewer stops.

School Board member Ed Gray III of Gulf Breeze has been pushing for consolidated stops for several years. The school board has adopted a new policy of consolidating bus stops for next year - now bus stops for elementary school students will be no closer than 400 feet, and for high school and middle school students the bus will stops will be at least 1,000 feet apart. Except for kindergarten students, or ESE students - or in very inclement weather - when door-to-door service will take place as it does today.

Currently, there are 8,064 bus stops being made for 17,000 riders. Next year, with consolidating stops, 876 middle school stops will be eliminated and 599 high school bus stops will be eliminated.

Harrell told the drivers, "This three-tier system has been on the drawing board here since I started with the district as an assistant principal - eight or nine years ago. But it was never fine-tuned and implemented because no one wanted to disrupt the smooth schedule we had going.

"So this is nothing new, just something that has to be done now. We have no choice because of money. And I am crying tears over the three-tier myself, since within my own family I will have to deal with all three tiers - with my two children and my schedule and my wife's. But as I am putting it together and dreading what it will mean within my own household next year, I know it just has to be done.

"My staff and I are feverishly working right now on consolidation of those stops, and we will do some dry runs at the end of this school year and again before school starts next Fall."

As far as bus drivers needing to re-bid on their routes, the transportation director said those details are being worked out.