school. When she became execu- tive director, she partnered with the Southern Nevada Regional Trans- portation Commission (RTC). She first looked at public transit routes with stops located no more than half a mile from school buildings and buses arriving every 15 to 30 minutes. She then segmented out students who were receiving CCSD transportation and that lived within a half mile of an RTC bus stop. “We started out with 15 schools


last year, and we were able to pro- vide transportation for the students by paying for an RTC pass,” she said, adding that an additional five schools were added this year. “They go to the bus stop there and are able to get on the RTC bus and then go to the bus stop near their school.” She said this program has helped


to provide students with flexibility and independence. Students can attend school earlier if they need assistance on schoolwork, or they can stay for extracurricular activ- ities or if they want to attend an athletic event. “The passes can also be used for after [school] hours, and it doesn’t have to be strictly to and from school,” she explained. “Stu- dents who have after-school jobs or jobs that they work on a weekend, they are able to use the pass as well.” Vobis noted that another way to help with the driver vacancies was by changing bell times, which she admitted wasn’t a popular decision at first. She said she explained that tiering transportation was the same as creating a master schedule for school buildings. For instance, she said one English class can’t start at 7 a.m. while another starts at 7:30 a.m., because then two English teachers are needed. It is the same concept when routing and develop- ing bell times for transportation. She noted that shifting the times


for over 200 schools wasn’t easy, but the community was supportive. Due


to all of these changes, the transpor- tation department was able to reduce the driver vacancies to 84 drivers heading into this school year. Vobis’ motto is one that makes her


office staff chuckle but also one they fully support. “It’s all about making incremental changes: the aggrega- tion of marginal gains,” she said. She shared her team is looking


at key pain points in the operation and figuring out how to make small adjustments that can make a big improvement.


The Technology Shift Adopting new live-view cameras has been a big department push this year, Vobis said. She explained that when partnering with RTC, one of the benefits was having access to real-time video feeds, which added an extra layer of safety and secu- rity. She said this year the district had the opportunity to upgrade the school bus camera systems with the same real-time footage. The cameras by Safety Vision,


which were being installed fleet wide at this writing, have already proven beneficial. Vobis explained there was a recent incident in which a parent tried to board a bus and the transportation department was able to update the police and dispatchers on what was happen- ing in real time. It turned out that the parent just wanted to talk to the driver, but if a situation did turn bad, the team was already in place to take the necessary action. Editor’s Note: A high-profile


incident of parents boarding a CCSD school bus and physically assaulting the school bus driver was released last month, but Vobis was unable to comment on the ongoing investigation. She did note that the bus had yet to be equipped with the live-view cameras. Michael Demers, a site admin- istrator and the coordinator of


All in the Family


Jennifer Vobis’ father was a principal for Clark County School District. Her sister is a current principal, and her brother is a teacher, as is her brother-in- law. Her sister-in-law was recently promoted from a teacher to an assistant principal.


Clark County School District has


charging infrastructure in place and was awaiting the delivery of its first two electric school buses, which were expected last month.


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