7/28/2019 District Response to Questions About School Time
Changes
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From: "Olson, Jessica" Subject: FW: School time changes
Date: April 12, 2013 11:14:44 AM PDTTo:
-------------------------------------------From: Gunn, MikeSent:
Friday, April 12, 2013 11:14:42 AMTo: Olson, JessicaCc: Cohn, Gary;
Mahan, Kathy; Vanderwilt, DebbieSubject: RE: School time
changesAuto forwarded by a Rule
Jessica,
School start and dismissal times have been established
withcost-effective and on-time school bus operations in mind.
Elementary,middle and high school schedules are "staggered" so one
school bus canmake two or more routes in the morning and again in
the evening. Thebuses picking up students for the earliest-starting
schools turn rightaround to ferry another group to a later-starting
school. The reverse
happens in the afternoon when buses drop off early-release
schools andreturn to later-release schools for another group of
students.
District transportation staff monitor and adjust bus operations
on adaily basis using data collected from a variety of sources.
Thesesources range from oral comments received from parents and
school staffvia telephone, to hand-written daily reports from
drivers (driver logs),to detailed monthly reports from Durham
transportation showing daily busmileage, costs, and hours of
service.
In addition, GPS units are installed on Durham's buses which
provideextensive, detailed real-time data on school bus travel
throughout thedistrict. Our staff use this data and their
professional judgment tomake regular adjustments to transportation
operations throughout theschool year.
As congestion and traffic increase in our parking lots and
streets, itis becoming more difficult to routinely run our student
transportationsystem on time. The afternoon bus routes originating
at Jackson HS,Cascade HS and Evergreen MS are particularly
challenging, and delays onthese routes often result in delays at
subsequent schools on later busroutes.
So far this year we have added three new bus routes and expanded
fourpartial bus routes at Cascade HS and Jackson HS to enable our
buses torun on a more predictable schedule, at a combined cost
increase of over$160,000. Each of these new bus routes cost between
$254 and $273 perday, and each of these partial routes cost between
$30 and $43 extra perday, and run on a 180 day school year.
We are considering four possible options to allow our buses to
run on amore predictable schedule next year, and are currently
undertaking acommunity survey to assess support for the various
options. We expectthe routes added this year and their additional
costs could beeliminated next year if more turnaround time were
provided by increasingthe minutes between school start and
dismissal times.
This survey will be conducted through 8 a.m. Tuesday, April 16,
and canbe accessed by this link
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/KDQ8X26.
Sincerely,
Mike Gunn
7/28/2019 District Response to Questions About School Time
Changes
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Executive Director, Facilities & Operations
-----Original Message-----From: Cohn, GarySent: Thursday, April
11, 2013 10:07 AMTo: Olson, JessicaCc: Russell, Jeff; Gunn, Mike;
Debolt, Terrie
Subject: RE: School time changes
Jessica, I'm providing your director inquiry to Mike Gunn for
analysisand response. I expect that Mike will be able to send you a
reply by theconclusion of the business day on Friday of this week.
He will let youknow if, for some reason, he is unable to conclude
his response by thattime.
Dr. Gary CohnSuperintendent
-----Original Message-----From: Olson, JessicaSent: Wednesday,
April 10, 2013 2:24 PMTo: Cohn, GaryCc:
[email protected]: School time changes
Gary --
Hey I'm getting a lot of questions about this school start and
end timechange/survey business. People are asking me about which
schools areexperiencing the delays, what bus routes, which areas of
town/streetsare congested, how many students involved, etc. They
are also asking mehow the District is quantifying the $162k saved
by making the changes asstated in the April 2 Herald article. In
other words, people are askingabout the data sources, if any, that
the District is relying upon inseeking to make these changes. They
are saying they want to see thisinformation for themselves.
With that in mind, I'd appreciate it if you, or a staff member
thatyou'll delegate, will please give to me a brief explanation of
the"proof" the district is utilizing that documents:
1) that these student transportation delays are indeed occurring
and towhat effect (which schools, routes, how many student affected
at eachschool, route, etc. -- and any other info you deem
pertinent);
2) that effecting changes to school start and end times will
indeed savethe District in the neighborhood of $162k
In addition, I'm almost certain that once I provide a response
to thesefolks, and repeat the info you'll be giving me, the next
step for themis likely going to be that they will want to see this
documentation forthemselves. In this probably and likely event, if
you could give any
names or titles of documents, surveys, observations, etc., that
would bevery helpful.
Thank you in advance for your assistance and cooperation,
Gary.
Sincerely,Jessica
Sent from my iPhone
