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The Nodaway Valley School Board just scratched the surface for conversations that may have to happen later on ways to remedy a problem of crowded school buses that haul district students that is compounded by a shortage of bus drivers.
NV Transportation Director Ben Lyons says the district eliminated one rural bus route part way through last school year, leaving the district with six. They have begun this school year with six as well.
What complicates matters more can be the high amount of students buses pick up and drop off at town stops. Buses have a dozen different stops they make in Greenfield, plus six in Fontanelle and some in Bridgewater.
According to the board’s discussion, the school district is only required by law to provide transportation to elementary students if they live more than two miles from their school or three miles for high-schoolers.
Lyons, who also drives a bus route each day, says he’s done studies in the last few weeks and says his bus gets its fullest when he gets to town. In fact, he has to drop off his elementary students first before attending to two town stops because he otherwise won’t have room.
Lyons and others repeatedly stressed during the conversation that nobody at this time wants to eliminate bus routes or change the way bus routes are currently being conducted, however the school board and administration wants to gather information from parents and other hard data relating to transportation to find the most efficient ways to transport students to and from school.
Lyons also explained that all of the route buses NV has are 65 passenger buses, though that capacity is based on three children in each seat, a seating arrangement that usually isn’t feasible when each children has at least one bag, maybe a band instrument or something else they’re carrying to and from school.
“From the time I do the car wash, go to the elementary, back and to the elementary again, that’s about five and a half miles in town and in the afternoon it’s about three and a half miles to get out of town after stopping at all those places. We started doing that when two of our routes absorbed the former seventh route,” Lyons told the board. “The areas we have the most challenges now are in the town of Greenfield. We’ve got 12 stops. Some of those are daycares and some are just what we call town stops. There are 12 stops but they’re not all in one shot.”
Picking up students in Greenfield is something that has been done for a long time and NV Superintendent Dr. Casey Berlau stressed that NV is not alone as a school district in the area that provides transportation to students who live in town.
“This may have been before we combined [into Nodaway Valley], but there was one time that the board felt that it was important that kids didn’t have to cross the highways, then slowly things got added,” Berlau said. “When Ben looks at videos and there are three kids to a seat and we’re trying to get them to keep their hands to themselves, [it’s crowded].”
Berlau said the primary intended result of Thursday’s conversation was to simply start a conversation between board members on what could be solutions to crowded buses and inform them on the topic because more serious conversations on transportation may come down the pike.
Berlau also reviewed all of Nodaway Valley’s vehicle fleet, which includes 11 buses and nine smaller vehicles, such as cars, vans or pickup trucks. The district’s purchase plan includes to replace a car or van this school year, buy a bus next year, buy a car or van the following year, a Suburban the year after that and another bus in the 2022-23 school year.
NV currently leases all of its route buses and owns three, one of them being an 83-passenger flat nose bus that is solely used for activities. The 2017 model route buses the district leases have 15,000 miles per year caps on them while the 2018 models are under an agreeance for 17,000 per year. Lyons is charged with the task of keeping track of mileage.
Also on the agenda, the board heard from technology instructor Jeanine Kliefoth regarding the school district’s computer science course offerings and its online course offerings. Currently, all foreign language classes are being taught online as well as several other courses, and Kliefoth oversees them.
Kliefoth outlined what middle school and high school students have been learning in their computer sciences courses and the importance of students learning computer science related skills. She explained that in many ways, NV is ahead of many other districts in its computer science course offerings and in how well those classes are being received by students who are eager to learn.
“So far, there are only about 15 states that have adopted policy to get access to computer science courses and Iowa was one of the first ones to really jump on board. We were one of the original ones to have started promoting computer sciences at the high school level,” Kliefoth explained. “There are over a half million jobs that have opened this year in computer science but there are fewer than 50,000 that graduated, so they want to promote it because it’s something that’s going to keep increasing.”
Based on a recommendation made by Berlau, the board elected to not offer an early retirement incentive for this school year. Some years they offer one, some years they don’t. Last year, it was offered to up to four individuals with an incentive of $15,000, and three teachers took advantage of that offer.
Also worthy of note, the board approved a request for modified state supplemental aid for increased enrollment and approved an easement with the City of Fontanelle so that the Farmers Co-op can continue to have power directed toward them.