Contributed by Susan Wilkins
Lake Washington School District needs to act quickly and restore timely and efficient bus service to east Education Hill. They should look at other bus routes whose stops have been reduced “for efficiency” and make sure that those routes aren’t being abandoned by students and parents in favor of driving. (Hint: Eastlake High School bus routes are too early to be usable.) The district has a new automated phone dialing system that can quickly call parents to inform them about important updates – like new bus routes. I hope to hear from them.
The really bad news is that the Lake Washington School District will not be receiving very much money from the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction since bus transportation reimbursement is based on the number of students who ride the bus each morning. During the month of October, all bus drivers in the state will count the number of students on their buses each morning for 5 consecutive days and the annual compensation that the district receives will be determined by the counts multiplied by the distance that each student lives from the school. This year, nearly 40 seats will be empty and the Lake Washington School District will receive no compensation from the state for the empty seats. What a waste. And the new route was supposed to save money.
Last year, Redmond Junior High students living in our neighborhood on the east side of Education Hill used to ride the LWSD school bus every morning. The bus traveled through the neighborhood picking up students along the way, drove them up the hill and dropped them at RJH. Students got on the bus at about 7:30 am and were at school a short time later.
This year the district announced that it would cut the number of bus stops and combine routes to help save money. But instead of picking up students from our neighborhood and quickly dropping them at school, the bus now arrives at 7:05 AM and then drives down to Avondale in slow, stop-and-go traffic to pick up 10 students who live near downtown Redmond. The bus then travels back up the hill along 166th Avenue NE and arrives at RJH at 7:40 AM. Total travel distance: 5 miles.
Parents contacted LWSD Transportation and asked them to reroute the bus so that the Avondale students were picked up first or put on a different bus. The transportation department declined our request stating, “…the route is scheduled the way it needs to run to keep mileage, fuel, wear and tear and time to a minimum.” adding “…it is your choice to have your students ride or not.”
Not only is 7 AM too early to get on the bus, it makes no sense to have students on a bus for more than half an hour when RJH is only 5 minutes away by car. The bus has room for 72 students and last year almost every seat was filled. This year, only 20 - 25 students ride from east Education Hill. Combined with the 10 Avondale students, at best, the bus is only half full.
by Susan Wilkins, parent and school volunteer on Education Hill
edited by Yoder
cc: LWSD Directors Eglington, Bernard, & Shahni
cc: Forest Miller, Director of LWSD Facilities/Transporation
Keep on leaving comments and having as many people contact the transportation department. We have had to deal with consolidation and route changes in Northshore SD in Redmond as well (though part of that issue was a boundary change in junior high and high schools). It often takes months of constant calling and emailing and requests for route changes before something is done--the next year. You can't give up after a month.
ReplyDeleteIn cutting bus stops by one third, the district acknowledged that one of the byproducts would be the inconvenience of longer rides for some students. Overall, the district will indeed save hundreds of thousands of dollars, which is saving teacher jobs. The change in route that Ms. Wilkins describes does lengthen the bus ride and is more inconvenient. But the situation she describes is not the entire story.
ReplyDeleteAll Redmond Junior High routes were changed to reduce the number of routes by one. So the primary savings for these routes is from eliminating one bus route entirely. Redoing a set of routes means that some students, like Ms. Wilkins’, who were the last picked up in last year’s route become the second picked up in this year’s.
One of the main issues is that by law, for safety reasons, the school bus must pick up students on Avondale on the bus door side. If students on Avondale were picked up first as suggested, no matter which route the bus took from the bus barn, it would have to turn around and double back on Avondale at some point. The total length of the bus route would be longer, costing more money. Any other reconfiguration of the bus routes that moves the Avondale stop to another route also results in longer routes, costing more money.
The requirement to pick up and drop off students on the door side on Avondale works to Ms. Wilkins’ student’s advantage in the afternoon. The routing used to make sure that happens results in the students at her stop being dropped off first in the afternoon, an average ride time of five to eight minutes.
Ms. Wilkin’s assertions about the time the bus arrives at the stop and at school are not borne out by the Zonar GPS system on the bus. According to that system’s report, which Ms. Wilkins or anyone else is welcome to see, the bus pick-up time at her stop in the morning is between 7:11 and 7:13 and arrival at the school is between 7:30 and 7:31. The average ride time is 18 minutes from her stop.
Finally, making any changes now will not affect the district’s funding from the state for transportation. The district’s ride count week has already occurred. The district’s numbers do show a drop of about 11 students from 23 to 12 at the stop Ms. Wilkins is writing about. There was no significant drop at any other stop on this route.
This change in bus routes is indeed inconvenient but the district will save money, nonetheless.
Sincerely,
Kathryn Reith
Communications Director, Lake Washington School District