Portee (left) championed the idea of adding seat belts to newly purchased school buses instead of retrofitting old ones. She and driver Jolene Garcia supervise two students buckling up.
Similar to mountain climbing, organizational leadership requires continuously putting one foot in front of the other in an effort to stride further and higher. And there’s an exhilaration upon the accomplishment of reaching the summit. Nicole Portee knows a thing or two about this type of ascent,
running a stellar school bus operation for Denver Public Schools nestled against the foothills of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. She has had her fair share of challenges and monumental tasks to overcome, but she has consistently risen to impressive heights, which is why she was named this year’s School Transportation News Transportation Director of the Year. DPS has a substantial transportation operation, with 399 school buses servicing 175 out of the 200 district schools. Portee also leads the Success Express, which is run in support of school choice and operates similarly to a shuttle service. But beyond merely su- pervising the various daily transportation-related tasks, Portee sees herself and her department as playing a vital role in fulfilling the district’s larger goals of helping each student succeed. Dedication to living out its motto, “Every Child Succeeds,”
resulted in DPS being named the nation’s top district for education choice in 2016 and 2017 by the Center on Education and Families at the Brookings Institute. Portee said the district is “progressively moving” through its five-year strategic plan, known as the “Denver Plan 2020,” toward realizing quality schools in every neighborhood and closing the opportunity gap. She makes sure that transporta- tion is involved every step of the way. “One of the things I try to do is try to understand from an educational or academic perspective, what is the district trying to
36 School Transportation News • NOVEMBER 2018
solve and how do we as transportation support the goals of the district in terms of meeting the needs of the students?” Portee revealed. She’s a visionary leader, guiding her department to a fuller under- standing and realization of its role in supporting child education. “We’re no longer just the yellow school bus. We are truly a contributor to education and access to education in a safe manner,” she stated.
TRADING IN BROWN FOR YELLOW Timing, customer service and familiarity with the city of Denver
are all crucial to Portee’s current role as transportation director, but she developed her logistics skills with the United Parcel Service. During her 13 years there, she worked her way from driver to workforce planning manager and learned the skills necessary for running a successful transportation operation. But no longer does it suffice to simply get a package from Point
A to Point B. She is presently responsible for daily transportation of almost 32,000 children from home to school, and back again, safely. Portee entered DPS as a supervisor of safety and training in 2003 and became safety and training manager within three years. A deeper dive into student transportation occurred in 2009, when she became a school bus terminal manager. Te very next year, she was named Denver’s executive director of transportation. Her predecessor was Pauline Gervais, an industry stalwart in
her own right and a tenured faculty member of the Transporting Students with Disabilities and Special Needs Conference. Portee said Gervais was her mentor who made sure she understood the importance of transportation’s role in a child’s overall education. Enter the Success Express, the brain-child of Gervais and a
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 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60
