An aerial view of Elk Grove Unified School District’s bus lot near Sacramento, California.
(with special needs), as determined by the IEP team,” he explained. “Elk Grove is also utilizing bus attendants on buses, where it’s not mandated by the IEP, but instead, determined by transportation that addi- tional student support is necessary. Typically, IEP-mandated attendants
are funded by the special-ed department, while transportation-added attendants are funded from the transportation budget.” Of the 5,590 children who daily ride Elk
Grove school buses, 2,600 have special needs, including 90 in wheelchairs. Tran- sitioning from older, small buses that are traditionally used for students with special needs, is one antidote for more routes. “(The buses) carry, maybe, 13 to 27 stu- dents, depending on potential wheelchair configuration, and capacities are deter- mined by three students per seat,” Sanchez said. “But you wouldn’t put three students with behavioral needs in one seat. We’re going to a mid-sized bus that will hold about 34 students and has three, four or five wheelchair stations.” As a result, the district loses some walk-
on capacity, Sanchez said, but it offers the versatility the district needs. “I could use 15 to 24 more mid-sized buses. When we spec them out, we also (call for) integrated seating to maximize
Despite the influx of large
corporations in THE North Dallas area, Frisco ISD remains the largest
employer in town, with
6,190 employees, according to the website,
frisco.com.
support of the growing population of young students,” he added,
Sanchez said he encourages transporta-
tion staff to work with special-education department personnel on mobility plans. Those should first help students with disabilities shift to general-education bus routes, while simultaneously increasing route efficiency. “The ideal situation would be to help those students become more indepen- dent, if possible, so that by the time they graduate, they could walk to a stop and pay for the bus fare (on a city route),” he said.
Higher Pay Helps Across the country in North Carolina,
Adam Johnson, executive director of transportation for the 152,000-student Charlotte-Mecklenburg School Dis- trict, has also been in his role since last July. Like Sanchez, he has placed driver training and retention at the top of his priority list. Between the classroom portion of com-
mercial driver’s license (CDL) training, the driving test, physical, background checks and drug testing, the time between being hired and jumping into the driver’s seat for the first time can be as long as 52 days.
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