Roy Exum
At first came the word there would be “no way” for the Hamilton County Department of Education to come up with a “Request for Proposal” bid for its bus contract. The school board was assured it is “a one-year process.” On Tuesday – two weeks later – the HCDE had a well-done proposal ready for the school board’s finance committee and it proved two things.
First, our “central office” can perform adroitly when adequately charged by the school board and, secondly, when the whole crowd gets in on the act – which was delightfully the case – the nigh-impossible tasks disintegrate rather quickly. So armed, the financial committee’s meeting was the most positive and most fruitful I have witnessed in our education complex on Bonny Oaks Drive in a year.
I believe there to be three or is it four board members on the finance committee? What impressed me was that eight of the elected nine members were present and the other had an unavoidable conflict. So many staffers were there they had to fetch extra chairs and Tiffanie Robinson’s two-hour agenda was flawless. You see, it can work!
The bus contract with Durham has come under close scrutiny since a November catastrophe left six elementary students dead in Chattanooga. Suddenly the fact we deploy 240 buses in the county to transport 20,000-plus students every day is of paramount concern. Few can talk freely about Durham’s performance due to a stack of lawsuits but the mood is to use “the loving hands of home” at the wheels of our buses as fast as we can. The HCDE is clamoring for owner-operators and financing is available to buy the $125,000, 84-passenger vehicles that now carry five different types of surveillance cameras.
When you consider the fact Hamilton County “yellows” drive 3.4 million miles each school year the safety record isn’t that bad but the Chattanooga public wants “perfect.” That means more local owner-operators. Right now there are about 20 percent of independent drivers and the school board has every intention of increasing wages, mileage and benefits to the point where a local driver – who will know each child’s name by heart and take community pride in that child’s education – will soon be the majority of operators.
It can be argued a severe blunder was made when the school system contracted the service away from driver-operators “to save money” and it is easy to circle other errors that delivered the school system to such a miserable stance. But that wasn’t the school board’s topic or its goal on Tuesday – there is today a progressive attitude to fix whatever is found broken.
The school board, well aware of the public and parents’ disgust of little action in the past year, will meet today for an agenda session and it’s a good bet the finance committee will meet again early next week so that a proposal regarding bus service can be voted at the monthly meeting a week from tonight.
“We have so little time that we don’t want to rush into a mistake,” said Board Chairman Steve Highlander, “but a change will necessitate as much time to replace the fleet as possible. We need to look at altering routes, meeting increased demand like we are finding in Ooltewah, for example, and blending in as many independent operators as is practical.”
A big bone of contention among the independent operators is that they have been nickeled-and-dimed in a near-ruthless fashion by bullies in former administrations. But the school board, with Rhonda Thurman lending irrefutable facts, is eager to atone for past transgressions by enabling the drivers to be able to operate out other buses they own on different routes. They will be eligible for health insurance and get at least a $4-per-hour increase in pay this summer. Diesel fuel allowances will also be made.
Recently there were 42 owner-operators at a little-publicized meeting but with an attractive benefits package, a shorter work day and free weekends; it isn’t a stretch to believe many CDL drivers would find the school bus duties better than over-the-road jobs or delivery trucking.
David Testerman wants to study a model where school teachers who need extra income could drive buses and now there is a definite need for adult chaperones, for lack of a better word, to accompany rowdy students on buses. The driver has no control or authority, it was pointed out, and now we know discipline is paramount on a moving bus.
“It is hard to say what benefit a local driver will give our children, since many of Durham’s drivers also live here and are very good at what they do,” said Ms. Thurman, “but I had the same bus driver from kindergarten through high school. He was part of my family. There is a saying ‘you can’t teach a kid until they are ready to learn’ but those of us who rode that bus all of those years knew we were special. We were, too,” she said.
By state law, a school district is required to bus only special education students but Rhonda shook her head at the alternative. “Too many parents and children depend on our buses. This is part of it,” she nodded at the over $15 million price tag. Magnet schools pose a problem, since they come from huge areas instead of zones, "but there is not a person in this room who isn’t willing to do anything to make sure we don’t have another tragedy.”
If the school board stays with Durham for now, it is believed the board will ask the carrier to consider a ramped-down contract. Durham, faced with huge lawsuits, can hardly afford to not try to keep as much of the contract as possible with legislation pending.
royexum@aol.com