Safety first

By Sonja Young
Herald Staff Writer

February 09, 2007 10:40 am

— There are hundreds of people who work in this city on a daily basis at jobs that are all about serving others. Most recently, it has been the firefighters who have put their own lives on the line to save others. There are the mail carriers who brave the rain and snow to deliver letters right to the door. There are policemen who patrol the streets and work to put criminals behind bars. There are doctors and nurses who can be counted on to meet ambulances at the hospital and city employees who plow the streets.
The same holds true for the people who operate the fleet of yellow school buses that transport some 1,190 students to and from school each day.
“Without us, some kids wouldn’t get to school at all,” Clinton School District Transportation Director Terry Fife told the Clinton School Board during a recent committee of the whole meeting.
“We’re a much-needed tool when one compares it to the overall operation of the district.”
Every school day the fleet of 40 yellow vehicles travels 1,125 miles. As of December 2006, 590 regular education, 324 special education and 81 Prince of Peace students were transported to and from school each day.
“During the 2005-2006 school year we traveled 372,531 miles for routes as well as non-routes,” Fife told the board. “That’s a lot of drivin’.’”
Fife believes it is his drivers’ job to make sure rides to and from school are safe.
“I tell the employees every time we have training, and I am one of the state instructors for school bus drivers, that people driving and working with kids everyday are setting the tone for those students’ day,” he said. “Before they ever hit the classroom with the teacher — it’s the bus driver who’s there, who meets the kid.”
Fife says his top goal is the safety of the students. All his vehicles are inspected by the state twice a year.
The district’s fleet includes 28 66-passenger buses; three 84-passenger buses; nine mini-buses; and assorted multi-passenger vans and sport-utility vechiles used to transport athletes and small groups of students.
Fife likes to replace two buses a year.
“We need to do that to stay current with some of the new things coming out. Our vehicles — they are just like your car — more miles and getting older.”
A new 84-passenger bus comes with a $184,000 price tag, so several years ago Fife had a 1983 bus refurbished. It now is the oldest bus in the fleet.
“We put in a new engine, transmission, repainted it and it’s holding up just fine,” he related.

Busing with technology
According to Fife, the transportation department now uses a Web-based routing system.
It also will be using a Web-based field trip system that will eliminate a lot of phone calls and paperwork. Right now it is in the training stage for staff.
In regards to the new boundaries, that will go into effect next year, it is Fife’s hope that with the new routing system he will have a lot of information out to parents by the end of this school year.

Saving money,
saving the environment
Every Clinton bus is equipped with a diesel oxidation catalyst. Fife describes that as a big muffler, except the diesel or exhaust goes into the muffler and all the little particles are cleaned off before it ever goes out the tailpipe.
“What goes into the air if you don’t have that are the diesel particles that people get sick from and obviously cause cancer.”
Fife said the oxidation catalysts were funded with grant money. Every vehicle in the fleet is equipped with one, including the 1983 bus.
“We use 20 percent soy bio low-sulphur diesel in our fleet for a couple of different reasons,” he said. “Cleaner air, and second, we do get a price break because we use diesel fuel.”

An abundance of challenges
Fife told the board there are a lot of positive comments being made about the new Eagle Heights Elementary School, but he considers it his leading challenge.
“With the boundary changes and all that’s going to be going on in the next few months, I’m looking forward to it,” he said. “We’re part of a district that’s moving forward, doing new things.
“We know we have to notify those parents where their kids are going to go (to school). How those boundaries are going to look and who is going to be bused to Eagle Heights and who’s not and some people are going to be very happy… and some people will be very upset that they’re not being bused. That’s one of our big challenges.”
Fife says it will be another challenge explaining the routes to the drivers as well as having enough drivers. The transportation department currently includes 23 drivers, 12 monitors, one secretary and one mechanic who also services other district vehicles when he has time.
“I don’t want anyone to get the feeling that we’re the only district that faces this,” Fife said. “And we are working on the challenge.”
One of the biggest challenges the department faces is providing transportation for students who attend some of the district’s numerous after-school programs. Fife told the board sometimes he just doesn’t have the buses to do it. The board will be looking at that problem in the near future.

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