The Boise Independent School District has yet to officially decide whether in-peson instruction will be possible when a new school year begins on Monday, August 17. That said, officials will need to be nimble when (and if) school doors swing back open.
One of school district's many reopening documents is a detailed blueprint of the many changes to transportation. During a traditional school year, approximately 6,000 children in Boise depend on a bus to get them to and from school each day.
Lanette Daw, transportation supervisor for the Boise Independent School District visits with Morning Edition host George Prentice to talk about some of those changes, as parents, teachers and staff count down the days to the first day of school.
“The bus drivers do have a big task ahead: as do the schools, working with students and training them with what the new normal will be.”
Read the full transcript below:
GEORGE PRENTICE: It's Morning Edition on Boise State Public Radio News. I'm George Prentice. Good morning. There has been much said and debated about the reopening of Idaho schools, but not too much said yet, at least publicly, about a critical element of going back to school and that's transportation. So we're going to talk a bit about that with Lanette Daw. She is transportation supervisor for the Boise School District and she joins us live this morning via Zoom. Ms. Daw. Good morning.
LANETTE DAW: Good morning.
PRENTICE: For the record, the Boise School District contracts with a transportation company. Yes?
DAW: Yes. We have a new company this year. It is Durham School Services and they just signed a new contract with us for the next five years.
PRENTICE: Well… baptism by fire. I'm certain that you're spending a lot of time with them.
DAW: Yeah, it's quite an operation to get a new bus company up and going. They've brought in new buses, approximately 146 new buses. Those all have to be inspected, pass state inspections, labeling put on all the electronics equipment. And then along with that, they of course have their own training program for the bus drivers. And so they've been spending a lot of time working with all of the bus drivers, getting ready and prepared for this fall.
PRENTICE: So the first day of school in the Boise School District will be August 17th. That said, up until that date, I am certain that because of how fluid the situation is, decisions will be made, changed, tweaked to determine whether there will be in-person learning or online learning. But for our purposes, let's talk about when and if the time comes for in-person learning. Can you give us maybe a couple of examples of what the new expectation might be for a parent or a student riding a school bus this year?
DAW: Sure. On the parent and the student side, we've been working through: What's that going to look like on the bus? Because our typical bus has approximately 50 students on the bus. And so to do proper social distancing, that would put us down to 12 students. So when we're looking at that fleet-wide, that means to get down to that we would need four to five times as many bus drivers and four to five times as many buses to operate that way. So understanding that challenge, of course, we've led our focus to, what can we do inside the bus.
And so, for the parents and the students, we are going to be doing several things that are outlined in our transportation pandemic operation plan. One of them is to seat siblings together. So anyone that's in the same household, we're going to ask that they be seated together to help minimize exposure. And then we also, of course, our masks will be expected for the students and staff on the bus. And we're also asking that parents help their kids to arrive at the bus stop prepared with their masks, hand sanitized, as clean as we can be. And then the same thing will happen at the end of the day, when they're coming out of the school, students will have the opportunity at the school building to make sure that they wash their hands, or sanitize their hands before they come on the bus.
PRENTICE: How about loading or unloading the bus?
DAW: We're going to try to minimize aisle time as much as possible. And what I mean by that is having kids standing in the aisle while they're trying to find a seat or get around friends. What we're going to be working with the students on is when we arrive at school, unloading from the front to the back. So, an orderly dismissal from the bus and then in the afternoon at the schools, the opposite. So as students line up for their bus, they would get on and fill the back of the bus first up to the front. And that will help minimize any of that standing and congregating in the aisle.
PRENTICE: The good news is, well, our falls and springs are rather pleasant. Is there an opportunity to ride with the windows open?
DAW: Absolutely. That's another item in our pandemic plan, is to where possible operate with the windows open just to allow that fresh air to circulate throughout the bus.
PRENTICE: And again, worth repeating: if we're in a situation where it's only online learning that would suspend transportation. Yes?
DAW: Yes, it would.
PRENTICE: I have to assume that when a parent hears what you do for a living, their question is simple and that is, "Will it be safe for my son or daughter to ride a school bus this year?"
DAW: I think one thing that's really important to keep in mind is school buses are the safest form of ground transportation. So, if you look at that as a big picture, in actual the transportation industry, they are the safest. As far as the current situation we're in, there are a lot of unknowns and factors that are out of our hands, or that we can't change the situation. For example, having four to five times as many buses and drivers to do proper social distancing, I feel like what we've provided here in our transportation pandemic plan is to address safety to the best of our ability, given the circumstances.
PRENTICE: And we are creatures of habit, what will be new to us in the first couple of weeks, well, I'm going to guess we'll learn and it will just become routine.
DAW: Yeah. We've talked with our drivers through our training about working with the students on the bus the first couple of weeks about good hygiene practices and bus expectations, related to what we need to do on the bus to keep everyone as safe as we possibly can. So, the bus drivers do have a big task ahead: as do the schools, working with students and training them with what the new normal will be.
PRENTICE: Do you have a sense of how many kids ride a bus in a traditional school year?
DAW: Yeah. We currently transport approximately 6,000 students each day.
PRENTICE: Is it a fair assumption that that number might be a bit lower when the school year starts and there is in-person learning where some parents are just probably going to be a bit more cautious.
DAW: Yeah, it is definitely one of those unknowns, but I do feel like we're going to have lower ridership this year to start out while everyone's deciding what they're comfortable with and what they feel is safe for their student.
PRENTICE: She is Lanette Daw, transportation supervisor for the Boise School District. I say good luck to many people, but I wish you very, very good luck.
DAW: Thank you. I really appreciate that.
Find reporter George Prentice on Twitter @georgepren
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