Radio dispatchers Charlotte Archuleta (facing Portee) and Pamela Nobles (right) work with technology systems like Tyler Technologies’ Versatrans routing, Zonar GPS and Bus Bulletin parent communication to help run the intricate routing necessitated by the 83 different school calendars districtwide.
program Portee saw through to completion. Denver’s school choice option allows families to request any district school located across a 155-square-mile area. Parents soon began expressing frustration that the transportation system was not helping with but instead hindering the experience. In the quest for an efficient way to transport students to their schools of choice, Gervais “initiated the conversation with the com- munity of schools in trying to come up with some viable transpor- tation options in order to support transportation, the schools and communities—to achieve a win-win situation,” Portee related. Tey hatched an idea to operate a school bus run like a city tran- sit bus, regularly circulating within a designated zone and allowing students several chances to catch a ride to or from their school of choice. Gervais retired in January 2011, and suddenly Portee was holding the reins. Within six months, she and her team developed
the program for a fall rollout. Te system has received praise from across the nation and won a 2012 Gold Peak Award from the Colorado American Marketing Association. Te University of Washington and the University of Colorado-Denver have cited the service as a model-program for the rest of the nation.
Community communication was a crucial step to building the
Success Express, Portee said. For example, parents of first graders needed convincing that it would be safe for their children to ride the bus with high school students. “Tis was about, how do we maximize the utilization of the bus without increasing the costs, and how do we meet the demand and the need of the families and schools to get kids where they want to attend school?” she related. To further increase the flexibility needed to improve student achievement, DPS gave schools more autonomy in requesting bell
“One of the things I try to do is try to understand from an educational or academic perspective, what is the district trying to solve and how do we as transportation support the goals of the district in terms of meeting the needs of the students?”
—Nicole Portee 38 School Transportation News • NOVEMBER 2018
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