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Bus Chaos Travels Familiar Route

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By MARILYN BROWN

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 24, 2008

TAMPA - Angry parents.

Late or missing buses.

Lack of time to roll out a new plan.

Promises to fix the mess before next year.

A description of the Hillsborough County School bus chaos this year?

Actually it's a description of last year, when the district tried out its new transportation plan in south Hillsborough, also known as Area 5.

Those changes, designed to increase efficiency and save money, were expanded this school year over a much larger area, at the same time new changes cut bus service districtwide.

It was too much, School Board Chairwoman Jennifer Faliero said late Friday.

"This is a top-level decision that went bad," Faliero said. "That level of decision making, that level of being caught off guard comes from MaryEllen. It just has to be said."

Superintendent MaryEllen Elia "has some explaining to do," Faliero said. "This is a districtwide crisis."

Faliero said she has been staying up until 3 a.m. answering parent e-mail after spending the first day of school Monday in the district call center taking parent calls.

"They're worried about whether their child is going to be picked up," she said. "That's how I live my life every day. They don't have information."

The bottom line: "We didn't give parents the information they needed because it wasn't ready. In this case, that comes down to the superintendent ... the staff have been great. Everybody's heart's in the right place trying to do the right thing. They get orders from the top."

Drivers, Parents Frustrated

The plan - which includes placing bus stops farther apart and stopping courtesy busing for most students who live less than two miles from their school - was extended to three more areas this year, despite a rocky rollout in south Hillsborough last year.

"I don't think they learned anything from Area 5," Luis Perez, president of the Hillsborough School Employees Federation, said last week. "It is bad. Drivers are stressed out. They come in and ask, 'When is this going to stop?'"

Area 5 bus drivers had no time to make trial runs last year before school and it was the same this year, Perez said. "A lot of drivers didn't get their routes until the Friday before school started." Many drivers for disabled students didn't have students' names and numbers so they could call parents with their stops before the first day, he said.

"The parents were left in the dark, just like the drivers," he said. In addition, instead of most drivers covering at least three schools - an elementary, a middle and a high school - some are assigned just one school. They then wait in their parked bus to see whether they are needed, he said.

Some drivers said they won't be able to live on the resulting six hours a day of pay and wonder why the district isn't using them when it remains short of drivers.

Parents remained frustrated and angry Friday after more than a week of trying to get through to the district transportation call center. Some got through but never got information or a return call. The call center number continued ringing busy, hanging up or making an odd clicking sound.

"I don't know what's going on," Mike Davis, a single father in the Palm River/Clair Mel area said late Friday after trying to get his 17-year-old daughter's stop changed so she doesn't have to cross a highway at 5 a.m. to reach her bus to Blake High School. He has left messages, but has not received an answer. "Who do you complain to?" he asked.

The transportation call center was not open this weekend, but staff, including some from the district office, were planning to return e-mail inquiries, Deputy Superintendent Ken Otero said Friday. He estimated at least 1,000 e-mailed questions had been researched, but parents had not been called back.

The district counted 185,269 students Friday - the fourth day of school because classes were canceled Tuesday because of the threat of Tropical Storm Fay. That's 2,176 fewer students than on the fifth day of classes in 2007, meaning the district may not make its projection of 191,583.

The bus problems are not being blamed.

"I don't think there are 2,000 kids that aren't in schools because they don't have transportation," Otero said.

School board members said they are looking for answers.

"This is a safety issue - we've got to resolve it," board member Jack Lamb said. Asked what was learned from last year's pilot program, he said, "I really don't know," but "I intend to pursue this."

'It Wasn't Done Very Well, Was It?'

April Griffin said the district made a mistake when it basically scrapped its old bus routes: "They completely dissected those runs," she said. Parents need the ability to go online with an identification number and "see what the bus stop is."

This year parents couldn't get answers from schools until the 11th hour when schools finally got lists of stops. In the past, school staff could give parents the list of stops. The district assigned stops this year with school staff unable to change them.

Late in the week, schools were able to give parents bus passes for stops, Otero said.

"If we don't trust schools to give kids a bus stop, how can we trust them to give kids instruction?" asked board member Candy Olson. "It wasn't done very well, was it?"

Olson said she doesn't blame the head of transportation, John Franklin, who came here in June 2007 to implement a consultant's plan. "John Franklin certainly can't do this by himself," she said. "Now we have proof of that."

Olson suggested Jack Davis, Franklin's boss, "is supposed to be riding herd." Davis is the district's chief information and technology officer.

Hillsborough - the nation's eighth-largest district - got along for years on a patched-together bus system. Even as traffic congestion grew, the district provided transportation to lots of families who lived within two miles of school, which the state does not require. Many were taken to day care centers or park programs in the afternoon instead of to empty houses.

Board member Carol Kurdell, who predicted the new plan would bring pain, said, "I never expected this level to happen. It started with a series of mishaps and escalated from there."

One issue that board members are reviewing is the new rule to only provide transportation to after-school park programs if students already qualify for transportation and the park is within the school's boundary.

Parents from Maniscalco Elementary in Lutz and Gibsonton Elementary are fighting the loss of a bus to take dozens of children from each school to nearby county parks that offer free programs.

In both cases parents said they found out about the change days before school started.

Friday night, Franklin, District Spokesman Steve Hegarty and George Gaffney, director for the area that includes Maniscalco, met with more than 40 parents at Nye Park, where many parents had already enrolled their children in the after-school program. None said they knew the Maniscalco boundary was across the street from the park. Parents suggested dropping the students off across the street from the park, but Franklin said he can't support that.

Franklin offered to bus students to a park in Carrollwood, much farther than Nye, which is two miles from school. They may also use the district after-school program for about $50 a week per student or find a driver and use a district bus.

Hegarty gave the parents transportation to Nye Park until Oct. 1, saying, "I agree we didn't give you enough notice."

Franklin, who has previously made himself readily available to media, refused to respond to a reporter's questions, saying they must be referred to Hegarty.

Elia was out of town Friday afternoon, her staff said. Her cell phone was full and would not take any more messages late into the evening.

Reporter Marilyn Brown can be reached at (813) 259-8069 or mbrown@tampatrib.com.

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