WSD Private School Busing Creates Chaos

[Editor's note: WSD business administrator Wade Coleman told parents Monday that 10 to 15 buses would be added to the private school bus routes in order to shorten them. This information was inadvertently left out of the original story.]

Nearly 15 parents complained Monday to the board of the Wissahickon School District (WSD) about new, collaborative busing that gets their children to private schools late and returns them home at dinner time or later.  They said contract bus drivers did not know routes and were rude.

Young Park, school board president, began the meeting by telling parents, “a shared, more regional approach in busing was agreed upon, and it is far from perfect.”  He apologized for the inconveniences and worries created by Montgomery County Transportation Consortium’s (MCTC) new bus routes that are wreaking havoc at home, on the road, and at school.

Wade Coleman, WSD business administrator, serves as the district’s MCTC governance board member. He told parents the person who created the routes had been replaced, and that he had told MCTC to “fix the routes.”

Coleman further told parents that 10 to 15 buses would be added to the fleet to help shorten the routes.

Through MCTC, WSD has 1,600 students bussed by First Student Transportation to 110 private schools in the area.  WSD is one of five school districts that participates in the MCTC. The others are Hatboro-Horsham, Lower Moreland, North Penn, and Upper Dublin.

WSD entered into the MCTC to cut costs.  Coleman said he does not know yet how much money will be saved using MCTC, compared to when WSD busses were used for transporting private school students.

Management Partnership Services, Inc., (MPS) , a consultant for MCTC, created the bus routes.  Tim Ammon, MPS vice president, said the routes are in the process of being reconstructed.”  He did not have a time frame for them being completed for the approximately 3,400 students from the five districts.

He said the longest “target ride time is 60 minutes,” based on the governance committee’s policies. Ammon added, “There are 90-minute ride times for students who live extended distances from school.”  He could not provide a radius for what is considered an "extended distance."

The contact for First Student Transportation, the busing contractor, was not available for comment.

Parents told similar tales of “unreasonable” hours for pickups and drop offs.

Beth Rosenthal, of Blue Bell, said her first, third and fifth graders are picked up at 6:45 a.m. for a school start time of 8:10 a.m.  They arrive at 9:30 a.m. at school in Elkins Park.  She said they come home at 6:45 p.m., after the scheduled 5 p.m. drop off.  Rosenthal said she waited at least one-and-a-half hours at the bus stop Friday afternoon to pick up her children.

Matthew Handel of Blue Bell told the board he plugged the route into Google Maps and “saw it was not realistic.” 

Many parents said their children got to school at least an hour late, and some were not excused for tardiness.

Elena Eisner of Blue Bell told Patch her daughter’s bus “did not come at all” Tuesday morning.  She needed to get to work and another parent took her daughter to school in Cheltenham.

Some parents told the board they are missing work because of the busing schedules. 

Others told board members that bus drivers were unfamiliar with their routes.  One parent said a bus driver told him he “was from Allentown, and didn’t know the area.”

Mark Style of Ambler said his child told him, “kids were trying to tell the bus driver where to go, but the driver yelled at them and said, ‘No, I’m doing it my way.’ "

Style said his child’s usual 20-minute ride took over an hour – one of the first stops on the route home – and wondered how long it took others to get home.

Andrew Mermelstein of Ambler said his child’s “bus [driver] would stop in traffic, trying to figure out where to go.” 

He told the board, “The routes are wasteful.  They are not taking direct routes, they are taking winding routes.” 

Mermelstein and others requested central bus depots so they could drop off and pick up children more conveniently.

Whitpain Police Chief Mark Smith told Patch, “One young man called to complain that he lived in Blue Bell Country Club, and his bus ended up on Butler Pike.”  Smith said the department has received four calls regarding MCTC busing issues.

A number of parents wondered if First Student bus drivers had taken “dry runs” before school started to learn their routes.

Some parents told school board members their child’s bus stop was in an unsafe location, and they used to be picked up at their driveways.

Many parents asked if WSD could get out of the MCTC contract. Park told them the routing issues need to be addressed first, and “if the problem cannot be worked out, then the district would deal with legal issues.”

Parents repeatedly thanked Coleman for taking their calls and trying to help them, when no one answered MCTC’s phone.

Park told parents, “It will take one to two weeks to resolve the issues.  I don’t want to give unrealistic expectations.  It’s not as simple as tweaking one route.”

When routes are reworked, Coleman told parents they will be contacted individually about new routes and times, their children would receive a school messenger about the new routes, and phone calls with updated information will also be made.  The new routes will be posted on WSD’s web site, too, Coleman said.

He said bus depots may be addressed after the routes are reconstructed.