superintendent wants everybody to be able to ride the bus,” he said. “So, anybody who lives in our district has a chance to ride.” He explained that he has one student who lives less than two blocks from school but chooses to ride the bus so that she can visit with her friends. Meanwhile, G. Scott Denton, the transportation director for Union County
Public Schools in North Carolina, said his district recently underwent “the big three” changes. “We did change our bell times for the 2020-2021 school year and those changes have carried forward to the current school year,” he said. “In addition, consolidated bus stops opened the door for a significant increase in double loads. All three strategies are necessary in order to optimize use of our fleet. Without the changes, I don’t know how we could have been successful.” UCPS uses the Edulog routing system to produce its routes, which begins with parents requesting transportation from their school. Once the school verifies that the student is enrolled and eligible for transportation, Edulog receives a download of transportation codes from PowerSchool, which is where transportation’s work begins, Denton explained. “We do use routes from that past year as our starting point and have standardized and consolidated as many bus stops as possible due to our shortage of bus drivers,” he continued. “Once our routing team makes the assignments in Edulog, schools use Edulog’s Web School Assistant and parents use the Parent Portal App to access bus stop information.” This year, UCPS is running 25 percent fewer buses than before the
pandemic because of the bus driver shortage. Denton noted that routing has been a critical piece to double up runs at schools in the most efficient manner. “Although a necessary part of our operations, we try to design doubles to minimize the amount of time students wait on campus for a second run,” he said. “Our Edulog routing software has played a key part in executing that strategy.”
Renewing Faith in Technology Two decades ago, New Richmond Exempted Village Schools in Ohio had been a long-time user of the Tyler Student Transportation software. However, John Frye, the district’s director of pupil and staff services stated that the software fell out of importance because the district became comfortable with rolling over routes each school year, which at the time was easier than continuously looking at efficiency and effectiveness. He explained that changes in the routes only occurred when the high school seniors graduated, and new kindergartens came into the district. “That was not effective and very inefficient,” he said. “It was actually very easy to implement because routes didn’t change except for the stops along the way as students changed. It was just inefficient. Buses were passing each other in the same neighborhoods and parks which was very expensive.” Further complicating matters, he added that the district went through
several director changes along the way. Last year, the district elected to renew the Student Transportation software
as it had gone through many upgrades and offered tools that matched the district’s needs, he said. “The pandemic also motivated us as we needed to be nimble in transportation, as routes needed adjusted, driver shortages caused doubling up of routes, and we needed to anticipate the changes that might be needed and be able to implement them on short notice,” he said. This school year, the school district has implemented the previous routes
48 School Transportation News • OCTOBER 2022
68% of transportation directors/ supervisors require parents to register their children to ride the bus.
(Out of 85 responses.)
Does your state or district require bus drivers to “pre- drive” their route prior to school start up?
81% Yes, district 18% No, neither
1% Yes, state (Out of 85 responses.)
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