Susan Perkins, the assistant director of transportation at Long Beach Unified School District near Los Angeles, recently spoke with STN about the department’s reduction in routes and bus drivers, and how it will bus students moving forward.
In the past four years, LBUSD has made major cuts in various areas, including student bussing. For the 2013-2014 school year, the board of education made $11 million in reductions it approved earlier this calendar year in areas that include transportation costs.
School Transportation News: How did this past school year go with providing transportation to students, and what were some challenges?
Perkins: It went fairly smoothly from an operational standpoint. Our main challenge this year was accommodating all the field trips and athletic trips with the small team of bus drivers we had available. Although the number of regular home to school bus routes that we serve had been reduced greatly, the number of trips did not diminish at all. We were forced to be quite creative with scheduling, and we will need to be even more so for the upcoming school year.
Another difficult challenge we faced was the layoff of district school bus drivers. With the large number of routes that were canceled for the upcoming school year, the district was forced to lay off drivers. We are hopeful that most of them will be placed in other positions within the district.
STN: So, how creative have you been in preparing for the new school year with transportation and routes?
Perkins: In creating our three remaining regular education routes we have had to stagger driver duty hours, assume school runs that historically had been placed on contracted runs due to the odd hours, and assign each remaining driver a midday kindergarten run. Our drivers historically have worked fairly standard duty hours and had common midday split times. For the upcoming school year the three drivers will be working different schedules with different midday splits. This makes scheduling safety meetings and staff meetings a bit of a challenge, but we will make it work.
STN: Surely then more students will have to find transportation on their own this new school year. Many might be taking public transit as an option. Does the district work with Long Beach Transit in any way when it comes to transporting students?
Perkins: We do work with Long Beach Transit. We continually keep them updated with information regarding our service reductions.
STN: Since the Great Recession began around 2007 and 2008, how much has the transportation department’s budget been affected in general, and how did the department make adjustments?
Perkins: LBUSD has had to make some difficult decisions regarding transportation, as we have been greatly affected by the fiscal issues of recent years. As an example, in the 2007-2008 school year, we had over 110 regular education school bus routes. This past school year, we had 20, and this upcoming school year we will have three regular education routes.
Most of the regular education transportation in LBUSD has historically been overflow transportation. Students who lived in densely populated areas with overcrowded schools were enrolled in schools outside of their neighborhoods that had space available. We provided those students with a ride to school every day. Most of this overflow transportation has been cut. The students are given the option of continuing at the school they have been attending (minus the bus ride) or enrolling back into their neighborhood school. As a result, adjustments for class size and use of space have been addressed at the impacted schools in an attempt to make more space available. Some attendance-boundary changes have also been made to adjust for student population balancing.
STN: School safety and security is in the limelight right now in light of recent events. Has the district taken any new measures to protect students at schools or while they are in buses? Any new safety and security-related training implemented?
Perkins: Our drivers — both district and contract drivers — receive safety and emergency training at our annual driver orientation training, as well as supplemental training at the monthly safety meetings. In addition, we have a very supportive school safety team with officers available and ready to respond in the event that a driver requests assistance. They also respond when we have school bus accidents, bus breakdowns, or school lockdowns due to police activity, and they assist with traffic issues at and around our school sites.
Additionally, our buses are equipped with GPS, and the vast majority of buses are equipped with video surveillance systems. We also participate with local and regional transportation agencies during mock major accident exercises and drills in order to become better prepared to respond in the event of a true crisis.
STN: Anything else you’d like to add about LBUSD’s transportation department?
Perkins: LBUSD Transportation has enjoyed a very long and proud tradition, and for decades we were viewed statewide as the district to emulate. Our beautiful Crown buses were always the topic of conversation as drivers from many districts gathered together at field trip destinations. Our drivers have a well-deserved reputation of excellent customer service with a strong focus on student safety.
Although their numbers are diminishing, our remaining drivers will continue with the LBUSD Transportation Department mission: “To provide safe professional transportation and quality customer service through exceptional teamwork.”
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Fast Facts: Long Beach (Calif.) Unified School District Transportation for the 2012-2013 School Year
- 5,532 students bussed to and from school daily.
- 2,625 students with special needs bussed to school daily.
- 83,991 students total district wide.
- Transportation staff: 36 staff members, including school bus drivers, truck drivers, office and support staff, and fleet maintenance staff.
- School buses: 28 district-owned buses; 17 used as spares and for substitute driver use. Three different contract companies provided nine additional regular education routes and 135 special needs routes. Of the special needs routes, 113 were ambulatory vans and 22 were wheelchair vans.
- Bus fuel type: Of the district-owned buses, one is gasoline, nine are CNG and 18 are diesel. The CNG buses were acquired under the Low Emissions School Bus Grant through the South Coast Air Quality Management District.
- Average age of the district’s buses: 16 years old (16 buses are 25 years old).
- School bus drivers: 11 district drivers for regular education, nine contract routes for regular education; additional 25 contract trip drivers available, and have a contract with another company for as-needed service. District uses contracted drivers for special needs transportation, and district truck drivers and a retired bus driver as subs when needed.
