By Adam Studzinski
NORMAL – Unit 5 approved changes to school start times in order to save money on district transportation, but the new bus routes quickly proved to be a problem.
Beginning with the first day of school, the district started seeing late and overcrowded buses. As they began working to solve the problems, Superintendent Mark Daniel said the situation was unacceptable.
“We are addressing some key issues,” said Daniel. “We want those to be timely and we want those to be immediate.
“Public trust needs to be earned. I think we live by that motto. Therefore improving the transportation system means safely getting our students to school and home on time.”
Fixing the overcrowding problem became the district’s first priority.
“It will continue to be the focus and I don’t think it’s ever going to leave, in regards to our being monitoring and focusing,” Daniel said.
The problems persisted, but as the school year moved on Unit 5 and transportation provider First Student said things were improving.
The late buses did take a toll on the students arriving late consistently as the district said students at Normal West High School and at Normal Community High School had been “adversly” affect by the situation.
“Our mission is to educate each student to achieve personal excellence and right now we are being prevented from accomplishing our mission,” Board of Education member Joseph Cleary said.
The district seriously looked into terminating the contract with First Student at the end of the school year, but Board member Michael Trask was one who supported giving the company more time to get back on track.
“We still have improvements to do and there’s other things in place that need to happen,” said Trask. “If we can accomplish that then I’d be willing to allow that 2018 year to go through.”
Ultimately, Unit 5 saw enough improvement to stick with First Student. However, that doesn’t mean the district and First Student are done trying to improve the situation.
“We’ve told them we need to be ensured of a percentage of drivers that are substitute drivers,” Daniel said.
Adam Studzinski can be reached at [email protected].
