School buses as tourist attraction

 

You may not know this, but not everywhere on earth has yellow school buses. For many, well, let me quote a visitor: 

“I have waited my whole life for this,” said Martin Friel, a teacher from Scotland, explaining that the only time he’d ever seen a yellow school bus before Saturday was in an episode of “The Simpsons.”

I mentioned back in May that the Scottish soccer fans--the Tartan Army--rented school buses to take them from Providence, where many of them are staying, to the matches in Foxboro. WGBH rode along on one of the buses this weekend. 

And if you've ever wondered why it is a U.S. thing to have yellow school buses, just today, that question was asked over on Ask Historians on reddit, and you can find that thread here.

Also, if you find school buses interesting, I recommend Why Busing Failed: Race, Media, and the National Resistance to School Desegregation by Matthew Delmont. This is particularly true if you are engaged in Massachusetts education and have been given the impression that the Boston busing decision was a failure of policy. 

Watch those school bus camera contracts

 Because we cannot have nice things, it appears, 404 Media reports that BusPatrol, the school bus stop arm cameras purveyor, that many of us have worked so hard to get legalized are now sharing data directly with police departments well outside of the context of illegally passing stopped school buses: 

BusPatrol has already taken steps to share the collected data with law enforcement contracting giant Axon, according to leaked BusPatrol documents and a source with knowledge of the plans. Internally, BusPatrol has acknowledged how controversial its plan to collect and share this data is pointing specifically to concerns about ICE using license plate data, but emphasizes the likely success of selling the angle of protecting children.

Things to read this week: happy May

Every decision about a school is one that *someone* cared enough to make.
I am always grateful for those who chose to ensure there are springtime flowers.
I took a second outside of a policy meeting in Millis this week to enjoy this tree,
which also smelled amazing.

I have a load of tabs open of things I'd suggest you read--so many are technology in schools, that I will work to give that its own post here!--so here's a round-up:

The promise of a school bus

This one happens to be on Route 122 in Barre,
part of the Quabbin Regional School District.

 A few weeks back, my morning trip to a school district put me behind a bus in a local district. It was an elementary school run, and so even in November, most stops had adults alongside waiting passengers of various sizes. There were last hugs, backpack handoffs, parting parental wishes before students joined their peers on board.

Is there anything we do that shows more trust in other people than putting our kids on a school bus?

I don't just mean putting our kids on a vehicle driven by a stranger; that's just the start. They will spend their day with adults who we trust with everything about them: their physical safety, their emotional well-being, their sense of self, and yes, their educational development. 

I think this is why so many of us are particularly appalled by someone driving past a bus with its lights flashing for a pickup; it isn't only that children can be hurt or killed (though it's certainly that). It's that we've agreed, tacitly, that we together keep children safe by all stopping for a bus that has stopped for them. It matters more than whatever the rush we may be in to get somewhere. Kids' safety comes first.

Except, of course, as a society, we have decided it doesn't, when on the eve of the anniversary of the Sandy Hook massacre, students studying for a final exam at Brown University are shot. 

Kids and their safety should matter more. But America has decided that it doesn't. 

NYC has an answer to school buses being late

 Congestion pricing, it emerges, has a positive educational outcome: 

NYCSBUS filed a legal brief Wednesday in support of the congestion pricing program, which is under siege by the Trump administration’s Department of Transportation. The first-in-the-nation toll is slated to bring $1 billion per year to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and reduce overall traffic congestion by charging passenger vehicles a $9 daily toll to enter the “Central Business District” — Manhattan below 60th Street.

Buses have been running faster since the congestion pricing toll began in early 2025, NYCSBUS noted. The effects could have a big impact in the classroom, with NYCSBUS boasting that some Manhattan students are now spending an average of about 30 minutes more per week in school.

“Indeed, since the program was implemented, students who ride NYCSBUS buses to schools in the [Central Business District] have gained, on average, approximately half an hour of additional time at school per week that otherwise would have been spent idling in traffic on a school bus,” the company claims in the 17-page amicus brief. 

Thus the Trump administration attack on NYC congestion pricing is also another way in which they are undermining education. 

Checking in on some major stories

•  Sure seems like it was a wise decision for the Worcester City Council and Worcester School Committee to remove police from the Worcester Public Schools back in 2021 on the recommendation of then-City Manager Augustus during the superintendency of Maureen Binienda, doesn't it?
  
  
• Barring action (or lack thereof) by the Governor, Lawrence, which hasn't had an empowered school committee since 2011, is on its way to no longer having a fully elected one, as the Senate passed the mayor's planned takeover of seats last week, after an 11th hour effort by Senator Fattman (who represents Southbridge) to stop it; cheers to Senators Jehlen and Elbridge who spoke in opposition as well. 
  We're well accustomed to blaming lack of local control of DESE; this one sits squarely on Lawrence City Hall collaborating with the state legislature. 
  
  
• In this same "we're past extra innings" time, we also saw the school bus camera ticketing bill emerge from the Senate, and it's on Governor Healey's desk. It'll now be up to local districts to actually implement it (please take this as a hint to get ready to do so). 
  
  
  
• The Education Law Center's 2024 "Making the Grade" report on school funding equity by state (using 2021-22 data) again demonstrates that Massachusetts isn't what it thinks of itself as:
  
  
  Yes, that's a D in both distribution and effort.
  
  Read the report itself for what those mean, but the ability of local communities to raise any kind of money they vote for just their school plus the Massachusetts devotion to increasing funding without any attachment to need, enrollment, or local ability to contribute combines to come home to roost here. We're perpetuating inequity, and far too much of the advocacy is pushing for more the same sort of increasing of disparities. 
  
  

Those also serve who drive the bus*

Among the cemeteries my family visits each Memorial Day is one which holds the following gravestone:

A granite rectangular gravestone with a curved top bears the name “Lowe” and the image of a school bus.
Visible on the side of the school bus is “R. F. LOWE”**

In the small K-8 district in which I grew up, Mr. Lowe ran the school buses. By “ran” here, I mean he owned, operated, and drove the small fleet of buses that were contracted to the town district. And when he drove as a substitute, however you may have behaved on the bus usually, you behaved yourself. 

Hearing on the use of school bus stop arm cameras for ticketing

 The bills that would allow for video from stop arm cameras on school buses (like those Worcester already has) are up for a hearing before the Legislature's Committee on Transportation on Tuesday of next week in room A-1 at 1 pm.

I plan to attend and testify. Note that this is also Resolution 6 before the MASC Delegate Assembly next month.

Anyone can submit public testimony and I highly recommend it if you are a student, family member, bus driver, or otherwise concerned! Emailed testimony goes to Kirsten.Centrella@mahouse.gov.

Back to school week in Worcester

Worcester Public School students in grades 1-12 go back to school on Monday (plan for buses and walkers, Worcester!). You find lots of useful information on the district's back to school page, which also includes a welcome video from the superintendent and all of us on the School Committee: 

Worcester will, for the EIGHTH year in a row, have universal free lunch and breakfast. You can find menus for schools here. 

Families, note that a lot of information is shared on WooEdu, which is the student and parent portal through Infinite Campus (search your app download for "Infinite Campus" and choose either the student or parent version). You'll need a claim code shared by your school.

Also I highly recommend downloading the VersaTrans My Stop app, which is the bus tracking app. You'll need student ID and birthdate for that. 

Preschoolers and kindergarteners go back on Thursday of this week. 

If and as you have questions, please be in touch! WELCOME BACK WORCESTER! 

A few notes on this coming week's Worcester School Committee agenda

 You can find this Thursday's agenda here. 

A few things of note:

• You might remember that I put on the agenda and then held a proposal that we endorse the state's proposed health and PE standards. That tops the agenda this week; if you have a thought on that, please get in touch. And if you haven't weighed in yourself, please do! 
  
  
• The conversation we've already been having regarding the School Committee clerk position reporting to the Committee should be resolved to be posted this week. Please take a look at the position description draft  and see if you know anyone who would be great! 
  
  
• We have a public petition from a student, paralleled by an item from Member Kamara, requesting that we move to the observance of Indigenous Peoples' Day, effective this year. Kamara notes in the item that it would align with the city's Human Rights' calendar. 
  
  
• Dr. Monárrez is coming back to us with a draft of her goals for next year (no backup as yet).
  
  
• We're being asked to send a letter endorsing the request for a federal grant for electric school buses.
  
  
• I'm requesting that we acknowledge "the climate emergency in the priorities, policies, actions, and budgeting" of the district.
  
  
• Member McCullough is suggesting hiring 16+ aged students in the summer for custodial work and other seasonal work.
  
  
• We're being requested to raise the salaries for CNAs and LPNs.
  
  
• I compared a boatload of our policies to the state model policies, and that work is all here.
  
  
• And you can meet our new administrators via the presentation at the end. 

Summer meetings start at 4, remember, but we start with executive session for about an hour. Look for the public session around 5.

October at Worcester School Committee

 

A few quick updates from last night's Worcester School Committee meeting (agenda, video):

• Public comment included (as noted in the T&G) student comment on dress code, and a request from students that recycling and sustainability. Dress code, please note, is currently in Teaching, Learning, and Student Supports, and the petition on sustainability went to Finance and Operations. It's always outstanding to see students come talk to us about policy!
  
  
• The report of the superintendent was on the MCAS results and the state accountability system; note that this is report one of two. That starts about 11 minutes into the video. 
  
  
• We sent two batches of policy off to the Governance subcommittee; that includes (again as in the T&G article) the updates in our list of protected classes (and the supporting law citations), and some of our fiscal policies (which are largely citations and cross-references, though it also finally gets the section in K that talks about gifts right in that they have to be voted accepted by the School Committee).
  
  
• We authorized the administration to pursue a four year lease for 1100 laptops (this should get the rest of staff outfitted!).
  
  
• We authorized the administration to enter up to a five year lease to replace the original 13 school buses we have had under lease (predating the purchase of 165 with ESSER funding), as that lease ends in June. The plan is for these to be propane-powered buses, as we’ve discussed in F&O, as the district continues to work on greener solutions.  
  
  
• We authorized the superintendent to sign documents regarding grants,legal settlements, and contracts on behalf of the School Committee. This purview question I am highly attuned to, so I aprreciate the patience in my getting to a appropriate amended motion.
  
  
• We’re moving towards translated meetings! The report from administration which outlined costs and recommended we pilot translation in Spanish, was recommended to go to subcommittee for consideration. We instead voted to request administration immediately move forward with the pilot, and we’ll discuss the rest in subcommittee (operational and costs money = it went to F&O) in November. 
  
  
• I want to do a separate post on the org chart and the approved positions. We did approve the position descriptions put forward, however. 
  
  
• We requested a report on enrollment, and one on how security guards are assigned to schools. 

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!

It's not about the bus

On WPS Transportation. Or not.

Rick Cinclair's photo for the T&G as part of Jeff Chamer's article of Monday

I got a message from a mom this week that said her daughter loves the new bus and said "it was beautiful." I think they're beautiful, too, but not only because they're shiny new buses.

We dropped our eldest off at college yesterday for the start of her senior year, and on the drive home, I was reflecting (as parents do) on the space between the person we'd just again sent forth and the four year old I remember helping up that big initial step onto the bus for kindergarten all those years ago, as many Worcester parents did for the first time this week. That little person and that big bus have an outsized relationship.
There's an enormous amount of trust embodied in that assist up the step and letting go of that little hand. As a school committee member, I keep that strongly in mind, especially this first week. 

It's the person who is at the top of the steps, though, that's the first impression families have of this system, this structure, their child is joining. The relationship of students to school bus drivers, like so many of the non-teaching staff in districts, often are among those that make all the difference. They're the first person from the district they see in the morning, the last they see at the end of the day, and how that interaction goes can determine how a day goes, and how a perspective on education is shaped.

Former Worcester superintendent Dr. Melinda Boone used to tell the story--you may have heard it?--of the custodian at NASA who, when stopped in the hall and asked what he was doing, responded that he was working to send a man to the moon. His work mattered in getting that done; a building that isn't cleaned and maintained isn't one that can send someone into space.

This is the same argument, really, that the Worcester School Committee was making by using ESSER funds to buy school buses: if the kids don't get to school at all or on time, and that's their access to education, then effectively they're not getting the education that they're guaranteed. That means that the mechanic that keeps the bus running, the trainers who make sure our drivers can drive the buses, the routers who make sure we have (and keep!) timely and effective routes, the liaisons who are getting people in and out and answering phones...they are people who are making sure Worcester kids are getting a public education. 

And that isn't only the case in Transportation. The student who got held after class and is five minutes late for lunch and still gets lunch with a warm greeting, the myriad of reasons a student may need a custodian during a school day and has one who ensures the student can get back to class, having buildings that are warm when they are supposed to be and have water where they are supposed to have it (and not where they don't)...these are the things that allow kids to get an education.

There's no better illustration of this right now than Jackson, Mississippi, where the entire city of 150,00 is without access to clean, running water. The district has flipped their schools back to virtual learning. And there's no end clearly in sight on this crisis.
You may not wake up in the morning, thinking about your access to clean, running water, but if someone isn't waking up in the morning, thinking about your clean water, and if that argument isn't ongoingly brought to those who vote the dollars to support that clean water, and those in power don't take action at some point, you aren't going to have clean, running water anymore. 

And we don't think a lot about the people who do that until the water isn't running or the bus doesn't show up or the building isn't clean or something isn't fixed.

Thus this Labor Day weekend post: for all those who do work in education and elsewhere that too often is invisible, until we need them and we don't have them. 
May we appreciate, celebrate, and value then in ways both symbolic and concrete.

What happened at last night's Worcester School Committee meeting: May 19, 2022 edition

 What happened at last night's Worcester School Committee meeting (agenda; video)? Here are the highlights:

First, the headline news: 

We have a contract! 

This is the final page of the contract of the 

Worcester School Committee with Dr. Rachel Monárrez;
signed by us Thursday night, in the mail to California Friday morning.

We have a contract with Dr. Rachel Monárrez for three years starting July 1. Signed, voted, voted down reconsideration. 

We also voted a three year contract renewal with Kay Seale, who is our director of special education. 

We're in contract negotiations, so I don't want to say too much, but we did have some of our WPS bus drivers speak to us. 

...which gives me a good excuse to share this photo! 
Yesterday, I got to ride a morning set of bus routes on S-29,
with driver Tina Mansfield (left) and monitor Justa Fernandez 
as part of the EAW's Walk a Day in Our Shoes initiative.

We also had--and, honestly, I can't tell you how proud I am of this--a strong showing of school psychologists and school adjustment counselors, who spoke on their petition regarding student mental health, in response to the report of the superintendent at the last meeting of the School Committee (also covered behind the paywall here). It takes courage to show up at a meeting and say, "No, it's really this way," when the dominant narrative has been otherwise. As covered in the WGBH piece linked above, our staff strongly argued, and gave data supporting, the need for additional resources and connections in our schools. Staff also used the public comment portion of our meeting--which is new this year!!--to make additional remarks on this issue.
Also Mayor Petty had an item on this agenda to set up a meeting between our mental health staff and the Mayor's Task Force on Mental Health. 

In reporting out on two subcommittees, I do want to note that there are ongoing discussions in TLSS on elementary libraries, and Governance is continuing to chug through our student handbook, as well as do some preliminary work on our revision of our strategic plan.

The COVID update was not good. The latest meeting of the medical advisors, as transmission remains high and the local hospitals are becoming concerned, yielded a "strong recommendation" that those in schools (and elsewhere inside) wear masks. The district's student vaccination rate is 35.5% double vaxxed, with another 6.74% with the third shot. That's lousy. 
This week's positives: 252 students, 84 staff.

We got a report back on principal succession planning, which didn't include which principals are leaving and being replaced--we aren't being given this information at all--but did have a bit of an outline on school-level involvement, described as follows: 

Candidates are screened by Human Resources for the appropriate DESE license. Licensed candidates are reviewed by an administrative team which selects candidates for the school-based committees to meet. The Site Council and the principal at each school identifies family and/or community members for the interview panel. Each committee consists of representatives from schools, central office administrators, the Chief Diversity Officer, members of the Superintendent's Advisory Committee, and school leaders. The committee meets the candidates, reviews resumes, asks questions and discusses the candidates responses. The Superintendent receives the interview committee's recommendations, meets with the candidates and makes the hiring decision.

After asking, we're going to receive a list of which principals are being hired.

We also filed some new items, to wit: 

• a request for a report on CORI reports on student volunteers. My colleague Sue Mailman put this one on, and, as CORIs effectively bar some parents and family members from volunteering, asking the grounds is super important.
• a request for a report on teacher shortages and substitute coverage this year (also Mailman)
• a request for a report on specialized programs by quadrant and student access to those (these from Jermoh Kamala)
• a request from me that we get a report prior to the end of the fiscal year next month on district adherence to MGL Ch. 32, sec. 90 and 91, as operational under the waiver passed during the FY22 budget process. This is hiring former employees who are now retired; there are caps on hours and pay. 
• a request from me that we look at our sexual harassment policy and its alignment with federal requirements (which are in a weird state of flux, as the rules from the Trump administration largely remain in force, but the Biden administration has said they're revising, plus Attorney General Healey has reminded us that Massachusetts has a higher standard). This one stemmed from some considerable concerns that have arisen among students on how the district handles sexual assault and harassment cases, in some cases. At the meeting, Superintendent Binienda passed out to us paper copies of a proposed revised policy in light of some of the issues that have been raised locally (which I'll share on here once we have it electronically). That goes to Governance for revision.
• A request from me that the Superintendent and her staff and the other employees of the district follow policy GBEBC and the state ethics law in refraining from using district resources, including district emails, from private fundraising, however good the cause. Enough said.
• And I'm really proud that my colleagues unanimously passed a proposed resolution for the MASC Delegate Assembly in November. If five committees across the state pass the same resolution by June 1, it automatically goes to the Delegate Assembly for consideration as part of MASC's state priorities. The resolution asks that the Legislature pass sanctuary laws like those proposed in other states for those who are trans and their relatives. It reads as follows:
  

  WHEREAS The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has a long history of standing for civil rights, including advocacy for a bill of rights in the U.S. Constitution, and
   WHEREAS Massachusetts codified gender identity as a protected class in the 2011 Act Relative to Gender Identity, and
   WHEREAS All children deserve a safe environment in which to grow up, and
   WHEREAS Some state governments are now criminalizing supportive medical care for trans individuals; moving to bar families from traveling to access such care; and otherwise violating the civil rights of trans children and their families, and
   WHEREAS The defense of the civil rights of the historically marginalized is contained within the first article of the Massachusetts Constitution right of “seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness,”
   THEREFORE the Massachusetts Association of School Committees call on the Great and General Court to join with other states in the passage of so-called “sanctuary” laws to ensure such children and their families have “the power of enjoying, in safety and tranquility, their natural rights and the blessings of life,” as guaranteed by the Constitution of the Commonwealth.

A few updates from the F&O meeting on transportation

 I did a rundown of the report received this afternoon, but there were a few additions from new information received: 

• Seven of the drivers currently CDL training are going through 7D training to be able to pick up when we lose the National Guard. 
• As I noted in the earlier post, MassHires is continuing to train bus drivers; it's been great to see the response already to this. It takes 60 hours to get a CDL plus a couple of weeks to get a test date, so it's been taking about two months to train new drivers.
  Mr. Foley asked that WPS social media be used to spread the word; I'll share the info again here: 
  
  
  
  
  
• The school bus bid closes tomorrow, and WE ARE GOING TO GET BUSES AS THEY COME AVAILABLE! In other words, we don't have to wait til next year; as we have drivers, they're coming on, and likewise with buses!
• DESE APPROVED THE USE OF ESSER FUNDS FOR BUSES! Remember, this means savings FASTER because we've just bought the buses. Important long term note: we need to plan NOW for the replacement cycle (as you don't want to have to replace all 100 buses in 15 years). 

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! 

The CDC said what now?

 You can find the latest CDC update here. The school-related piece is under "Recommendations for Indoor Settings" and reads simply: 

CDC recommends universal indoor masking for all teachers, staff, students, and visitors to schools, regardless of vaccination status. Children should return to full-time in-person learning in the fall with proper prevention strategies in place.

You can, if you like, see me talk a bit about this here.  

Something I had not realized until yesterday--so sharing for others who likewise might not have known--is that the federal transportation requirements, which is masks being worn on planes, trains, buses, and such, also applies to school buses. If you scroll down to the FAQ, you'll find this:

Which public transportation conveyances does the order apply to, and in which areas?

The Order applies to all public transportation conveyances traveling into the United States (i.e., arriving from a foreign country) or within the United States (including within states or territories or traveling between states or territories). This includes school buses. The Order also applies to all conveyances leaving the United States until they arrive at a foreign destination.

Emphasis added. h't to Arizona School Boards Association for their tweet noting this yesterday! 

 

@CDCGov public health order requires masking on "public transportation conveyances." "The Order applies to all public transportation conveyances traveling into the United States..or within the United States... This includes school buses." https://t.co/siBaAPswSR

— ASBA Gov Relations (@azsba_GR) July 27, 2021

The ongoing bus saga

 I think I've probably missed a couple of chapters of updates here on the blog, but, as we had a fairly lengthy discussion Thursday night during what was otherwise a pretty short meeting, I thought I should add something here. 

With the continued shortage of Durham buses, or, more specifically, drivers, and with the high schools back five days a week, the district has had to insert a double first run on a number of route like so:

Most buses do two or three runs already: they'll do a high school route, drop those students off, go back out and do an elementary route, drop those students off, and go back out and do a later elementary route. This has some of our--and I do mean Worcester Public School-run buses--doing a high school run, then doing a second high school run before they go do the second tier. In order for this to work (and I use that word reluctantly), the pick up for those students is really (as you can see) early, and the students are being dropped off at school as early as a half hour before school starts. As we said on Thursday, if that's a family's choice, that's one thing, but when we are doing it--and then, in some cases, leaving students outside--that's not okay.

This is the continued impact of having fewer than our contracted number of buses through Durham, as also shown in the memo we received for Thursday's meeting: 

I went through and added another row to the chart: on 3/39 we were short 37 contracted buses; on 5/3 we were short 29 contracted buses; on 5/17; we're short 21 contracted buses.

Note that as of Thursday, we were a month out from our vote to send a letter of breech of contract. We were told Thursday that the letter had not yet been sent. We passed an item that it be done so and that we receive the letter, signed by the Mayor as our chair.

21 contracted buses times two or three tiers is a lot of students impacted. And that in turn is a lot of families impacted, and a lot of schools impacted.

This isn't just about the frustration that this creates for everyone (including the rest of our staff!) involved. We run buses so students can get to and from school without that being a responsibility of families exclusively. When we push this back onto families, we increase inequity, as the families who lack resources--of time, of private cars, of additional help--are those whose students are then not able to get to school on time or at all. 

a word about ventilation

This is not going to be in depth, because this is not my field at all, but I've seen some online consternation from the end of last week at the report that students from Silver Lake Regional rode home on a bus with the windows open in the snow.

Yes, they had their windows open, and yes, there are districts planning on having bus windows open, and yes, we knew that.
Here's why:

Air exchange can be a key piece in cutting down on virus transmission. This excellent piece from El Pais from last week does a nice job of running through the variables--space, mask wearing, loud speaking, and others--in transmission of the virus. One of those is how much air is being exchanged: how much fresh air is coming into a room, and how much stale air is leaving the room. There are ways of measuring air turnover and so forth, but the key point is that it's both fresh air coming in and the old air from the room being pushed out.

Now as the El Pais piece makes clear, this is about combinations of things that make the chances of virus transmission higher or lower. So you're trying to add things--masks, spacing, air exchange, in Worcester's case ionization--that lower chances of transmission.

When we talk about schools--and if you watched Worcester's School Committee this summer, you caught this--we talk about three kinds of systems:

• Full ventilation systems (the AC in this particular case isn't the question), which both bring IN fresh air from outside AND ALSO push the old air out. Now, if you're someone who grew up in places that need indoor heating in particular seasons, you know why schools wouldn't necessarily have this: you're continually needing to heat that outside air! They do, though, in some cases, have settings that allow for particular mixtures of air so you're not having to continually heat entirely new air. However, they can be set for full exchange if that is what is wanted.
• Partial ventilation, which brings IN fresh air from outside BUT doesn't have a mechanical means of getting rid of the air inside. If you're an adult of about my age from the northern piece of the U.S., there's a decent chance that your memory of a school heating capacity is from the blowers along the walls. That doesn't do anything about the air that's already inside getting pushed out.
• No HVAC: many schools have just systems that just heat the air that is in the building; ventilation (the V of HVAC and thus why these buildings without that or AC don't have HVAC) isn't part of that. This is things like steam radiators. 

So if you're in the situation of either of those last two, which is many school buildings and yes, also buses, what are you going to do? You're going to open windows both to bring in outside air and to expel indoor air. Thus the fans you've seen in school windows (frequently pushing air out, though sometimes they're paired to bring air in, too), and thus also why buildings were built with things like the transom windows opening onto the hallway, which allowed for cross-ventilation in buildings when they were built, if the exterior windows also are open.

An important note if you're in Worcester (or other places doing or discussing this), incidentally, is that the ionization systems are yet another layer to all of this, which are actually cleaning the air without air exchange, and so are a whole different thing. 

This is how we end up with apartment buildings from the last pandemic that are designed to be overheated, so the windows will be open in the winter. From an energy efficiency standpoint, of course, this is...not.
On a school bus, though, there aren't a lot of options on air exchange.