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Transportation Department Notice: November 2019

By Allen Tipton on November 14, 2019

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Transportation Department Notice: November 2019

Have you ever been in a situation where you have to juggle three things at once? Or maybe you have "robbed Peter to pay Paul". It is in the context of these types of challenges that we find the status of our schools' transportation department, and there is only one real reason why. We have a very small staff, and our substitute availability is incredibly slim. In other words, we do not have enough help, and despite our best efforts, we do not see that changing any time soon. By the way, we are ALWAYS hiring substitute and activity drivers.

Operating nine rural routes (which also take care of town pickup and delivery) with only nine available drivers can be difficult when sick days and personal days come into play. Add on top of that athletic events and club events that require transportation, and quickly you will find days where there aren't enough bodies to fill the driver seats.

So, we have had to start entertaining scenarios that we have not had to consider in the past. For instance, what if one morning we only had eight available drivers to cover the nine daily routes? How would we handle that? In that particular case, we would have to run two routes in shifts. The first route would run at the regular time, and the second route would be run approximately an hour later than normal after the first route delivered students to school. Of course, we will communicate that route-specific information through the school messenger tool. What if an activity was scheduled and there was no available driver for that activity? Unfortunately, in that case, the activity would have to be postponed or canceled. Again, that information would be communicated through the school messenger tool and would be posted on the school's website and social media pages.

So far we have not had to implement either of these scenarios, but we have come close. We wanted to make you aware of the challenges we face in the transportation department, and the solutions we will see to take care of our students and their families to the best of our ability.

If you are interested in becoming a bus driver or substitute or activities bus driver, please contact Allen Tipton at 660-947-3361, ext 399 or email at atipton@putnamcountyr1.net for more information. 

Thank you to all of our current drivers and substitutes! We appreciate you!