Why the school bus cannot accommodate your request?
Several times each school year, a transportation department will have a dreaded conversation with a parent.
A house pickup, bus change, or different bus driver request cannot be accomplished to their satisfaction. A parent will complain why the school bus cannot accommodate picking up their child.
The assigned bus comes too early and there is another vehicle that passes the front of their house ten minutes later.
“Why can’t the bus just pick up my student in front of my house?”
The Public School Code determines safety procedures. The purpose of the regulations establish minimum standards to protect students. The safety of each student must be parliament in all scenarios.
There are both financial and physical costs involved with every additional school bus stop. Many decisions go into student loading locations. Brake wear, labor minutes, and safety are top concerns.
Why?
Often buses cannot go into certain roads because of various reasons. Cul-de-sacs, road closures, and one way streets must be considered.
The school bus must be able to traverse small streets and maneuver tight turns, which can be incredibly difficult to navigate. Most cul-de-sacs are not built to accommodate large vehicles such as a school bus, which has a longer turning radius and needs more space to maneuver. The school bus would have to back out of the street in order to continue on its route. Backing out of a cul-de-sac is time-consuming, and could cause serious delays on a school bus route.
The safety of the children, as well as other drivers on the road, is paramount and it is essential that the driver be able to focus solely on the road.
Transportation is a shared responsibility.
Student transportation must be a shared responsibility between the student, parents, the school, and the community in order to ensure the safety, cost, and convenience of student transportation.
A district transportation policy should serve residents and tax payers for the best possible solutions to the community as a whole. The goal as a department is to spend resources in a direction that community deserves.
