route,” she added. “And when we’re ready to go back to their normal route, we just reset the effective dates for the normal route.” Miller noted that Washington state recently began
requiring districts to provide transitional kindergarten programs for 4-year-olds. She said TK and kindergarten students must be met by either a parent or older sibling at the bus stops.
Optimizing Ohio Michael Miller, the transportation director of Sycamore
Community School District in Ohio and no relation to Cassidy Miller, won the 2025 Outstanding Transporta- tion Director through the Ohio Association of School Business Officials. He was recognized for his efforts in consolidating over 600 bus stops and reducing routes from 55 to 45. He explained that the process started sev- eral years ago, after his first year in the position. “We took a look at our school bus stops to see what
we could eliminate,” he said, adding that Sycamore was able to eliminate 636 stops to consolidate to more corner stops, which also allowed for the reduction of
four routes. “Throughout the years we just kept chipping away at it to see what else we could do.” Then, COVID-19 hit. He said at that time the district
dropped from 51 routes to 46 due to social distancing and not being able to fit a lot of students on buses. He said when the district returned to “normalcy,” it reviewed those 46 routes and maintained them. That was until this past school year, when another route was cut. “We also took a look at our load sizes and realized that
we were not utilizing the capacity of our buses to their fullest potential,” he said. “In Ohio, students can travel up to one half of a mile for a school bus stop. Now, in my district, nobody has to walk a half of a mile to a school bus stop.” Historically, transportation would add a stop at the
driveway of a new family that moved into the district, instead of putting them at corners, where more students could be picked up. No longer. “We also stopped going into cul de sacs unless they
were over a half a mile [away] We also stopped going into private property residences,” he said, adding the district created centralized stops outside the complexes.
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www.BESI-Inc.com | 800.543.8222 28 School Transportation News • JUNE 2025
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