A post that actually is about WPS Transportation

 I did promise you an actual WPS Transportation post; here it is! Note that a transportation update is part of this week's Finance and Operations Subcommittee meeting on Thursday at 5 pm. You can join us in person in room 410 of 20 Irving Street, or the Zoom link is at the top of the agenda, plus the meeting will be streamed online as usual.

If I can just reflect for a moment...

What a thing to go from this in the FY17 budget:

Text reads: Student Transportation: The Administration will explore the feasibility of directly providing all in-district student transportation services beginning in 2020. The analysis and recommendation will be forwarded to the School Committee in advance of the next student transportation contract period. Further, the current capital equipment budget funding level is insufficient to provide a reliable replacement cycle for special education buses. With 35 buses and 1-3 vehicle replacement funding per year, the Administration will need to explore the lease of vehicles through the operating budget in the near future.

...to this for the first day of the 2022-23 school year:

I can't think of anything I've been part of that's gone from vision to execution in quite this fashion. So when I tell you that I choked up a bit when I saw this on my phone Monday morning, I'm not exaggerating:

As I said at our meeting on Thursday, one thing that has mattered enormously in this undertaking has been the degree to which it has been embraced by the community. From the vote just over a year ago (how was it only that long??) by the Worcester School Committee over the objections of then-superintendent Binienda, the degree to which the community has been solidly on the side of making this work has been abundantly clear. This past week, the overwhelming number of messages I got from parents (and there were a lot!) had some mention of how much they appreciated the district was doing transportation in-house, even if they were contacting me with a concern or a need for information. This was Worcester's project, which Worcester embraced, and Worcester is making it work.

It's far far too early for "Mission Accomplished" banners, but I don't think it's too early to note the vision that got us here was Brian Allen's--those are his words above in the FY17 budget--who has continued to ask how we can run our systems more effectively and more efficiently.
"Cycle of continuous improvement," anyone?

And, speaking as a school committee member, I'd sure as heck rather be paying our local bus drivers $30 an hour than sending any of our limited public dollars off to the international shareholders of National Express.

ON TO ACTUAL INFORMATION (much of this drawn from this week's update from Superintendent Monárrez):

• We started the week with 74 full-sized buses for the 74 routes those run, but we had several buses in and out of service for the first few days. That's clearly going to be less of an issue as more of the new buses--of which another 10 will be ready for this coming Wednesday--come into service and fewer of the buses we're renting are what we're using. That also will increase the number of buses we have overall, which will take some of the pressure off each bus.
  
  
• We have more drivers being trained, tested, and starting all of the time. (I think we even had someone pass a test Thursday?) Remember, we're training in-house, too, so new drivers are learning all of the time. It's going to be a bit before we get up to full (budgeted) strength on the number of drivers, but we're getting there. 
  
  
• For those who are asking when things, particularly in the afternoon, will be more dependably on time, the answer is twofold: the first few weeks are always creaky (they always have been), PLUS as we cycle more drivers in and can both decouple routes and have spares, there will be much smoother afternoons. So you'll see improvement over the next few weeks, with further improvements over the next few months with more drivers and buses on.
  
  
• Enter this number in your cell: 508-799-3241. That's WPS Transportation. They start answering the phones about when the buses leave the lot, and they're there until buses get back. 
  Crucial point about the phones: the wait time quoted is inaccurate. I know a number of people calling early in the week (include School Committee vice-chair Jermaine Johnson!) who had a quoted wait time of an hour; that was never actually the case! They're working to disable this message when you're on hold, but in the meantime, please don't believe it.
  Also, please note that liaisons speak Spanish and Portuguese in addition to English, so share that!
  
  
• On the app: The app available for students and families is called VersaTrans MyStop, made by Tyler Technologies. You can find district directions here. As a student or family member, you need only student ID and birthday to sign in; it syncs with our student information system to pull up and give access to the bus to which your student is assigned (and no others). 
  A few things to remember: you'll only see the outline of the route once the bus has started out, and you'll only see the bus on your student's route. However, we do have a few buses that are running double routes in the afternoons (they pick up at the high school, drop a busful at the stops closest to school that clear the bus, and go back to school for a longer, second route), and that it IS a double route isn't clear on the app. The schools do know this, and it should be clear to your student. The GPS also can't tell if what the bus is running is a consolidated route (in other words, the bus is picking up students from more than one route); this has happened when families might not see their bus running, and then a bus appears. Both of these will be resolved as more buses and drivers come online, and we can stop having to do this.
  If you are still having issues with your app, please call Transportation during the day and have them walk you through a reset. At this point, with the exceptions of the above, the app is operational, so if you're having issues, it's your connection with the app that needs to be fixed.
  
  
• If you are interested in how this is going and where this is going, please do read the backup for this week's meeting (that links straight to the page) for more information of where we are now, where we're going this year, and what happens next. And again, that meeting is at 5 on Thursday, and the public is welcome (online or in person).
  
  
• And if you have questions, please continue to send them along. The changes and improvements on this have been more than daily, and I know the feedback, questions, issues, and so forth getting back to those running the system have made a difference. Keep 'em coming. 

This post from Robert Reich this Labor Day reminded me of the spirit that's clear every time I walk into the Transportation Department. We'd gotten a few questions over if there'd be a division, for example, between those who have driven directly for the district right along, and those who were working for contractors. Through goodwill on all sides, a self-identification among staff as "Worcester Public School" bus drivers and monitors (that's what the buses all said, after all!), and management that genuinely values people, there has been an ongoing sense of (as with the larger community) this being a group effort to make this the best dang public school bus system around. 

Finally (and with the caveat that lists are dangerous things and always leave people out!), what a difference leadership makes: having Dr. Monárrez walk through the things that were not working (not denying they were there), while discussing what concrete steps were being taken to improve a system that people were working very hard to improve is what makes a system actually get better over time. I appreciate her thoughtful consideration of what is working and what isn't, her honesty about it, and then her leading concrete planning to improve systems.

I do want to note that having a transportation system directed by John Hennessey, who can 'make sense' of transportation in a way that's a combination of innate skill and experience that can't be matched, has been part of my level of confidence that this all can fly.
I also want to note the enormous amount of work done by assistant director of transportation Mike Freeman this week (and before and probably after!); I know I personally talked to him one morning before 6 am, and I got an email from him one night at 9 pm, and I know I wasn't alone. Mike is ongoingly devoted to making this all work better, and we couldn't be in a better position there.
The supervisors who are overseeing all that's going in and out--Wayne Cardwell, Angel Carrasquillo and Benjamin River--remind me of those movie sailors at the wheel, steadily steering a ship through a hurricane (sorry, gentlemen; I may just have condemned you to having that metaphor follow you!).
Yelitza Garcia is HR over at Transportation; one of my favorite tidbits from the FY23 budget is that Transportation staffing has increased 174.4%. That's Yelitza!
If you connected with someone at Transportation this week specifically about MyStop, that was Cassie Shea in IT, and thank goodness for her! 
We have had routers working for us for years at this point--did you know we have ongoing changes over the course of the year?--and Kerri Collins and Joy Winnie have been stalwarts through all the changes these past years.
If you are among those who have ever said "I could never do that" about driving a school bus: imagine teaching others to drive a school bus? We could not be making this work without the trainers and safety people--Marianne Bryan, Kathy Everett, Jason Crue, Dawn Cavanaugh, and Peggy Holloway (some of whom were driving buses themselves this week!), and I know they've also been key to that cohesiveness among the drivers and monitors, too. 

Anyone who answers phones to respond to questions and does it well consistently (said this elected official) is performing an underappreciated service, and the transportation liaisons responding in particular to parents these first weeks of school are so crucial to making this all work. That's Owen Tessier, Annaliese Estabrook, Becca Carlberg, and Adriana Campbell. 

Those actually keeping the buses running--the mechanics who are Jani Nakollari, James Hicks, and John Holmes--are literally keeping it all going.

And of course, to all the drivers and to all the monitors who are actually making the transportation happen: thank you! 
Onward to week two!
If I missed anyone above, that's my error and please tell me!

Here we go: WPS transportation is coming!

 I was looking through archived emails for something else this weekend, and I found one in which I was filing an item on changing school start times, and the response I got back referenced the transportation study. 

The email was from 2014.

You can perhaps imagine my delight, then, at seeing the following header in this week's Finance and Operation subcommittee agenda backup: 

That starts on page 23. We'll be getting monthly updates on this from now until we have all the buses on the road (and perhaps after?). 

What's in the update?

There are already 21 drivers in training: 15 getting the CDL license, 6 getting the school bus piece. There's an another 11 being screened for another class. 

And this isn't in the report, but yes, we WILL continue to add classes, so if you're interested, get in touch! 

Our buses are out for bid, which closes Wednesday (and if you're into school buses, the bid is interesting reading!). Out for bid are:

• 100 Type C – 71 passenger School Buses (gasoline)
• 38 Type A Mid-Size School Bus (gasoline)
• (Both of the above are the same as what is currently used; "type C" is the kind with the engine out front, which is currently how you can tell WPS buses from Durham buses, which are "type B").
• 27 Type A Wheelchair School Bus (gasoline)

Those are either going to be paid for through ESSER funding--after all, actually getting students to school on time reliably is a basic prerequisite for doing more learning in person--or through city capital funds. As of Friday, the state was still reviewing the ESSER application for this work.

Two things students and families will be interested on in the new buses:

1. "Each bus will have new tablet technology providing automated route guidance and adjustments"; in other words, rather than turn-by-turn printouts, there are tablets in the buses that do that, and can be updated real time. 
   
   
2. "The Versatrans MyStop bus location mobile access application will be operational on all WPS buses next year." In other words: YES! We will FINALLY have an app to track buses.

Natural question for both of the above: why don't we have those now? 

1. On the first, we do: WPS buses that run in house have tablets that update real time with route information. Durham hasn't made the investment in the technology to do so. We've seen how useful this can be real time this year, when more than once, WPS buses have been rerouted by WPS dispatch to pick up kids from routes that Durham has dropped or slipped behind on.
   
   
2. On the second, it's been in the Durham contract since at least 2015, The contract has never fulfilled that part of the agreement. That has been ongoingly noted by members of the School Committee ('though it wasn't enough to get the contract not renewed last time). If the Committee and/or the superintendent doesn't require that the contract be fulfilled, it doesn't get fulfilled. Consequences to not fulfilling the contract can be imposed, but that takes cooperation with the superintendent. 

And no, we haven't forgotten alternative fuels. The start-up costs are too great for the fleet expansion, but as we sub out the leased buses, "exploring" (which is the finance office saying "we're working on options and we'll be reporting back) alternative fuels is the plan.

There are two rounds of hiring beyond the drivers: 

Positions to be added During FY22:

 Human Resources Liaison (to be

called Transportation Personnel

Supervisor)

 Transportation Systems Coordinator

(new position from budget savings)

 Transportation Safety and Training

Liaison (3) (from budget savings as

identified in report)

 Transportation Safety Supervisor

(from budget savings as identified in

report)

Positions to be added for FY23:

 Four Mechanics

 Operations Supervisor

 Transportation Liaison

The HR addition is of course because we're bringing on a LOT of new staff, and that takes additional work in the office there. You can read more about the safety and training positions in the report. The systems coordinator is in part specifically to be sure that the routing piece works, including the tracking app. In other words, this isn't a lick and a promise; there's hiring going on to staff that work. 

I am really pleased about the mechanics, as another ongoing issue we've seen has been not as much preventative maintenance on the buses that are contracted out; buses shouldn't fail as often as theirs do. 

There's also a site map of 115 Northeast Cutoff, which is where WPS Transportation and Facilities are now, indicating the room for expansion for this project. They've not only got room: they've got the plan. 

This is not my subcommittee, so, while I will be on the meeting, I won't be speaking. 

The one thing I really, really want to know is what of the above we might bring on when! 

Worcester School Committee meets Thursday

And the agenda is here, as a PDF with hyperlinks? I think this is new.
Finance and Operations will be reporting out from their Monday meeting.
The report of the Superintendent is an update on the strategic plan (no backup as yet).

There is a response on interactions with homeschooling families (the link doesn't work; it's page 28): of 158 plans in 98 families, the adminstration reports that 96 were approved within the first week, 26 within the second week, 19 before 20 days, and 17 required more than that. The report states that the 17 were all incomplete upon submission, missing "evidence of progress." They state that only 2 plans are missing. The report says a "recent court ruling supported the WPS standards for evidence" though the case is not cited by name nor is it included.

There is a list of Chapter 74 programs and the number of students enrolled, as well as the after school and evening programs and enrollment.

Mr. Monfredo and Miss Biancheria are proposing support for the Baker-Polito effort to reduce domestic and sexual violence among young people.

Mr. Foley and others note Mr. Hennessey's award of 2019 Administrator of the Year from School Bus Fleet.

There is a proposal to update policies - JB – Equal Educational Opportunities; ‑ JFABD - Homeless Students: Enrollment Rights And Services; ‑ JFABE - Educational Opportunities For Military Children; ‑ JFABF - Educational Opportunities For Children In Foster Care (it's language tweaking).

There are eleven pages of outstanding administrative items that the administration is suggesting be filed as the term comes to a close.

There is a request that the following donations be accepted:

• $400.00 from a donor to Claremont Academy to be used as a scholarship for Latino female of Latina who plans to attend college.
• $84.60 from Box Tops for Education to Canterbury Street Magnet Computer-Based School
• $225.00 from the Digital Federal Credit Union to McGrath Elementary School
• $500.00 from the District Attorney's Community Reinvestment and Crime Prevention Program to Forest Grove Middle School to assist with their bullying campaign

There is a request for information about the new vocational tracks at Doherty (which the Committee has already voted in favor of).

There is a request (without backup) to approve a prior fiscal year payment for $308.79 to Airgas ("industrial, medical, and specialty gases").

Then there are a slew of items from Mr. Comparetto:

• Request that the Mayor consider alternative methods to electing and appointing School Committee members that includes, but is not limited to, district School Committee seats. 
• Request that the Mayor and School Committee establish Worcester Public Schools’ Safe Zones.
• Request that the Superintendent present an annual report on the status of education for Latino students.
• Request that the Administration incorporate best practices for creating a diverse workforce.
• Request that the Administration provide an update on current restorative justice practices.
• Request a moratorium on suspending K-2 students for non-violent offenses.
• Request an "equity audit" of the Worcester Public Schools in accordance to best practices.
• Request that the Administration provide an update on the efforts of the Administration to create ethnic studies programming

Miss Biancheria wants an update on the South High building project (shouldn't this be a standing item in a subcommittee somewhere?) and an update on recess (which I think Ms. McCullough has an outstanding item on already).

And there is another prior fiscal year payment in the amount of $1,484.10 to Johnson Controls Fire Protection LP for services performed at Burncoat High School (fire supression?).

And there is an executive session: for arbitration with the Mass Nurses Association; for litigation with the Estate of Suzanne F. Miville; and for collective bargaining with the computer technicians.

Yes, I am planning on being there and blogging.

Reading round-up

Some things I've read recently of interest:

• it shouldn't be news but it never hurts to reiterate that PTA fundraising exacerbates inequities. The move towards at least making outside funding transparent would be a first good step (can't we run these all through school committees as donations? shouldn't we, anyway?). 
• there's been lots of pushback (thankfully) on the rewarding "grit" notion (which was somewhat being misinterpreted, anyway), and this Boston Globe piece puts that together well. 
• morning reminder (via tweet) post-Santa Clarita that what we're teaching students in schools is not only harmful, it also is of limited utility. 
• if the Supreme Court decides to end DACA, we're going to lose a lot of teachers. 
• I'm not sure that our having gender neutral restrooms available in the new Worcester high schools should even be news, but the pushback to those criticizing it in the comment section on Facebook is heartwarming. Also, this Time article is a solid read.
• and perhaps it isn't surprising that Worcester Public Schools Transporation Director John Hennessey can make sense of the spaghetti that is the routing system; it seems he was practically born in a bus yard! Nice one from School Bus Fleet, which is the national school transportation magazine, on Mr. Hennessey's recent recognition as 2019 Administrator of the Year. And yes, it does talk about bringing WPS transportation fully in-house. 

Finance and Operations: bus contract

Allen: not complete, hope to complete in mid-December for bid in January
provided what we're working on at this time
(also current bus specs: both large and special ed)
SBC looking at different bus scheduling; also consolidation of routes; not done yet
also will offer as a single contract (due to market conditions), rather than split of special ed and regular buses
thinking about changing in the technology that have occurred: real time GPS and real time video
looking at drop-down tire chains, given weather conditions
(WPS buses have drop-down tire chains now)
also block heaters to be sure buses will start
updating fuel adjustment clause: still monitoring what price will be over next five years
adding language around fingerprinting
use of buses during school day for athletic transportation
change specification of what a special education bus is
requesting today that School Committee authorize the bid for five years (needs both School Committee and City Council approval)

Foley: "you may be able to save money as a district, but it may not be advisable"
"at what price?"
there are implications to some of the cost savings measures

Ramirez: do you take into consideration population trends?
Allen: under current structure, it isn't necessary due scheduling, to look at shifts in enrollment
but if we changed how we scheduled buses, we'd need to
once you've entered a fiscal year, if you use the per trip rate, you'd be stuck, essentially

Novick:survey of parents would be great, could we do that?
where are we at with WRTA? still talking. Suggestion of if we need to send someone into Boston to buy CharlieCards from the MBTA

Foley: real time GPS tracking would be great
starting buses in colder weather

Joint Committee meeting on transportation

You can find the transportation audit from School Bus Consultants here.
posting as we go...
Starting with a presentation from School Bus Consultants remotely. 

The bus routes are up!

You can find them here:

http://t.co/HA41Z6EvAw

Transportation

...which is here. And posting as we go...

Transporting nearly 11,000 students daily
Covering approximately 10,000 miles per day
1.8 million miles per school year

WPS School Committee Policy:
“Free transportation is granted to pupils in grades kindergarten through 12 who
reside two (2) miles or more from the school which they are entitled to attend. The
legal obligation of the School Committee in this respect is limited to provision for
transportation for elementary school children and the School Committee does have
the right, if necessary, to charge for transportation or not provide transportation at
the secondary level regardless of where the student may live.”

I'm not going to copy down all of the numbers here of buses or of how much we're spending on them...go check it out!


If we can use the midday service, it's cheaper for it to be done in house (not true of wheelchair service, which is contracted out); if there is not midday service to be used, it's cheaper for it to be contracted out.

We will need another large bus (WEMS adding 6th grade)
and adding 6 special ed buses

Economou asks why we are busing non-public ed students; Allen: various regs requiring us to do that
"The only way to get some transportation savings is to reduce transportation."
"...the only way to get transportation savings is to make very bad decisions"
Economou wants to know how to make those changes; Allen, would need to change the state law to provide those services.
O'Brien: motion to get legal clarification on what our obligations are, and is there any flexibility there?
...if we bus secondary, we have to bus all secondary (private and parochial students, as well as public students)
Rivera: "they don't conribute to the cost at all for transportation?"
Allen: and transportation doesn't count towards net school spending...could reduce transportation costs by $750,000 if we could cut those buses
Rivera comments that she's floored by this
Fuel costs? About $50,000 for price of fuel

O'Brien asks how much is fuel costs and how much is special ed increases?
Rivera asks why it goes up over the course of the year? Sometimes it's students being processed through a team through the year, but sometimes we're getting new students. Boone adds that the special ed process is a 12 month process; part of that is determining whether that requires transportation (as part of an IEP)...looked at like speech therapy, occupational therapy...

Colorio: who do parents call if they have an issue?
Hennessey: three numbers, depending on the type of transportation
508-757-1463 is Durham's dispatch for the big buses
508-755-3495 is Durham dispatch for special ed
508-799-3242 (or 3241) for special ed run by WPS 
Buses can be called directly from dispatch; Durham buses have a GPS system to determine if the bus had been where and when.

Hennessey notes that there is some leeway given to drivers as to if they can safely negotiate particular streets on slippery days.

Colorio asks if parents could pay to get on buses that are within the two miles (ugh)
Allen: fees are approved by School Committee; cautions that it's a very difficult conversation to have as well (due to free and reduced lunch-eligible students)
Boone: 73% students eligible for free and reduced lunch; we have not added fees, "create a system of the haves and the have-nots"
Colorio: there are other private schools that don't "take advantage of transportation"..why do some take advantage and some do not?

O'Brien here is referring this report to City Auditor DelSignore for review (and possible outside review); Novick says she will vote against, if it is a joint referral. Consultation with the clerk says that this is a Education subcommittee referral, so the F&O committee is not voting on this. Referral to Auditor by City Council.