FARMINGTON—Some special education students in the Davis School District are on the bus for more than an hour, some as long as two hours. District administrators are trying to find a solution to the busing problem that impacts not only special education but general education students.

“Riding the bus is a required service,” said Tiffany Midgley, Director of Special Education Services during a presentation to the school board. “These are some of the most fragile students, some that have medical issues and some that have difficulty with behavior in the best of circumstances. I don’t think any of us want kids on the bus that long.”

Elementary students with disabilities are riding with secondary students and they’re dropping off kids late or picking them up late, she said. “That can violate the IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act).”

A team made up of the special education and transportation departments, school directors, and leaders are looking at different options to solve the problem, one is a staggered start time. “We looked at what’s being used in other districts in the state and what is being used nationwide,” said Shawna Cragun, Director of Transportation. “These are some of the things they considered. Districts statewide and in other states are using staggered start times.”

They’re doing that a couple of different ways, she said. “Some of them have five or six start times for elementary, two or three for junior high. Some actually let the transportation department set the start time. So they would route the route then tell the school what their start time was going to be.”

 Cragun said her concern with this is it makes collaboration very, very difficult between schools. “A lot of our elementary schools will split and feed into more than one junior so you’re having a significant impact on parents and teachers as they are trying to do things.” 

The next thing is increasing time between schools, she said. “As we were looking at options this is by far the most viable. When I’m talking about times I’m talking about the release time from one school and the time we need to be at the next school.”

Most of them are about 30 to 35 minutes, said Cragun. “Those are the times we’re having struggles with. Anything that’s been within 40 to 45 minutes we’ve been extremely successful with.”

Also hiring more bus drivers is still a great option, she said. “Truthfully we’ve looked at this and routed it. We would need about 83 new drivers and about 45 new buses. The expense of that is in the millions but beyond that, truthfully there’s just not enough people. That one’s hard even beyond the money.”

The team came up with an Option #1 and Option #2 with proposed bell schedules (see charts). Option #2 really addresses the p.m. and Wednesday morning late start, said Cragun. “It has brought attention to the other days. Those have been a problem for a long time but Wednesdays have just exacerbated it. Everybody’s got their attention drawn to it that we’re not getting there on time.”

The transportation team has developed two possible options to solve the busing problem.

                                                                                          Charts courtesy of DSD

The transportation team has developed two possible options to solve the busing problem.

                                                                                         Charts courtesy of DSD

This affects the general students as well, she said. “There’s an 88.5% failure rate on Wednesday when they arrive late. It’s heartbreaking. They’re arriving before the second bell but are they getting there frazzled, missing instruction and rushing? Are they ready to learn when they get there? It’s actually affecting everyone.”

“When I was a principal at Central Davis it was a real problem,” said Secondary Director Dave Tanner. “They’d get there when the bell rang but they didn’t have time for breakfast. It broke my heart. I’d let them go to class 10 minutes late so they could have breakfast.”

Is there a solution to the problem? he said. “Is it going to make everyone happy? More than likely not.”

“I think we should move forward with Option #2,” said School Board President Liz Mumford. “It’s not hard to swallow for everybody. It’s a temporary solution but could be done pretty quickly but this deserves a long study. We have to look at city management, traffic lights, etc. There’s a lot of solutions and lots of thoughts.”

This is really an administrative function so there’s not going to be a vote by the board specifically on whether to shift schedules, said Mumford. “I do think it’s something the board wants to stay abreast of and be involved in to support what action we can take that helps our special ed students and general ed students get to school safely and successfully. Option #2 might be a good starting place.”

At Tuesday’s school board meeting Tanner gave the board a follow up in favor of Option #2. “The proposed schedule gives a time shift that allows 40-45 minutes in the mornings for the bus to pick up kids,” he said. “In high schools and junior highs it allows for 30-35 minutes at the end of the day.”

Tanner said they sent out a survey to elementary principals, teachers and all staff. “They as a whole selected the second option as their most favorite. We also talked to junior high principals and they liked this option as well.”