L
ast year, Forbes magazine named Dallas the third-fastest growing city in the nation. Its school district, Dallas Independent School District, is already the 16th largest in the U.S. and the second-largest in Texas. Soon it will
also boast the state’s second-largest transportation operation. Kayne Smith has his work cut out for himself, as do more than 1,200 employees who will officially join him this summer in pro- viding school bus service to approximately 30,000 students. Dallas ISD hired Smith in February as the man charged with leading the school district’s efforts to bring transportation in-house after 90 years of operation by Dallas County Schools. It’s quite a project to inherit 900 school bus routes and vehicles
from a contractor, whether it’s a private company or a govern- ment agency, the latter being the case with DCS. Te transition is complicated by not only those nine decades of contracting out the service, but more so by the circumstances in which Smith and team must accomplish the feat. In November, voters approved the dissolution of DCS amid a
reported scandal that included bribery and real estate fraud tied to former school bus camera vendor Force Multiplier. State legislators said DCS, a publicly funded entity created by law, illegally operat- ed across the state a for-profit business. First, DCS overstepped its bounds by becoming a contractor for school districts outside the county. Ten, it sold those districts Force Multiplier’s stop-arm cam- era systems and acted as the agent to issue tickets to motorists who were caught illegally passing school bus stops. Meanwhile, there were alleged kickbacks for securing contracts and land to build bus barns. Days after the Nov. 7 election, Dallas ISD Superintendent Mi-
chael Hinsoja announced a task force consisting of representatives from the nine local school districts affected by the DCS scandal. Collectively they discussed next steps, whether on an individual basis they would contract out to another bus company, form a lo- cal cooperative or return transportation under full district control. Dallas ISD chose the latter. Te route toward realizing full, in-house operations following the school board’s decision to reign in school busing was started by Scott Layne, the district’s deputy superintendent for opera- tions and chief operating officer. Transportation now falls under his purview, joining operations, food service, maintenance and facilities, and construction services. He said transportation will be fully operational by Aug. 1, two and a half weeks before the start of school on Aug. 20. Dallas ISD already has in-hand 11 new Tomas Saf-T-Liner C2 school buses, which it purchased earlier this year when Dallas County Schools no longer had the funds to do so, waiting to join the rest of the inherited fleet. A more pressing need is filling about 150 vacant school bus driver positions. Smith said during an inter- view on March 9 that onboarding of drivers as well as technicians and support staff was ongoing and will remain the focus in coming months. A recruiting campaign is targeting potential candidates via job fairs, social media and other advertisements. “Everywhere is hurting for school bus drivers,” he said. “Making
sure we have staff in place is the first priority.” Routing is a close second, as he added that the technology must be implemented by July 1 to complement ongoing communication
30 School Transportation News • APRIL 2018
with campuses and parents on bus schedules. “Tat’s not a lot of time to go through all 900 routes,” Smith continued, even as he organized his new office at the former Dallas County Schoolshead- quarters—which Dallas ISD purchased in February for $6.1 mil- lion—in between myriad planning meetings. “As time progresses we’ll be able to look at where we can have more efficiencies.” A third area of concern for Smith is improving customer service.
In addition to its extracurricular activities, DCS drew the ire of parents for late arriving buses, or those that didn’t arrive at all. As he wrapped up a meeting about changes needed for the district’s website—Smith’s name had yet to be posted to the transporta- tion page at this writing—and prior to sitting down with School Transportation News to talk about transition plans, a transportation coordinator fielded a phone call from an irate parent. She demand- ed to know why the DCS-operated school bus but with Dallas ISD lettering on the side, had not picked up her daughter for the past two weeks. In addition to opening the line of communication with
parents, campuses and internally throughout the transportation department, Dallas ISD is looking to technology to help with the aforementioned issue and a host of others. Tis month, Smith and Layne will present their recommendations from an RFP that closed last month that seeks a wide range of solutions: Routing and field trip management; real-time vehicle location; RFID student tracking with data transmitted in real time over a cellular network; remote vehicle diagnostics; fuel management and parts inventory; software management of all mileage and hourly maintenance tasks; 360-degree camera views inside and outside the school bus to monitor driver and child behavior as well as that of other motor- ists; and the necessary training of staff to make it all happen. It’s a lofty goal, one that has some in the industry wondering if
it’s realistic, not to mention cost-effective. Layne called the tech bid a “smorgasbord” of what the district could implement, not necessarily what it will implement. Realistically, with routing the district’s initial need, many of the other potential solutions are at least a year away.
“Te first thing that we need to do is make sure we have the
routes in place and the routing software, then all the extra compo- nents, we’re going to phase those in over time,” Smith added. “We want to make sure that we implement them right, that we have buy-in from the district and the community in the implementa- tion process.” Te routing technology will assist Dallas ISD in identifying efficiencies to the current three-bell system of 40-minute periods between the start of elementary, middle and high school. Layne and Smith said the approved solution could result in reduced routes, at least in the short term. Te longer range goal is to increase student ridership. “One of our issues here is the choice schools have different schedules, so it’s not as clean as three tiers on the bells,” Layne ex- plained. “Tat’s what has increased the number of routes. We may have an early college academy that operates 30 minutes later than the other high schools.” Te district will also add three more choice schools this summer, bringing the number to 67, which further complicates matters.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52
