OXFORD — The Oxford Hills School District will continue to transport elementary students and middle and high school students on separate bus runs next year, Superintendent Rick Colpitts told directors Monday night.
Colpitts said despite the potential savings of up to $400,000, a number of concerns, both in the plan’s effectiveness and efficiency, remain too iffy to recommend one bus run now.
“We didn’t put this (idea) to bed. We will continue to study it,” he said.
In February, the Board of Directors gave Colpitts the go-ahead to look into having one bus run whereby all students along a route would ride together, morning and afternoon. The reason was to help meet an estimated $1.2 million to $2 million budget gap in fiscal year 2011-12.
But concerns over scheduling, bus capacity and the perception among community members that it may involve long waits or rides for the students, all played into the superintendent’s decision not to recommend the plan.
That recommendation was supported unanimously by the Operations Committee.
Colpitts said the idea still has much merit. “I believe we could have implemented a single tier bus system, but it would have stretched us to the maximum,” he said.
“The one issue we couldn’t deal with, that we struggled with, was the issue of scheduling,” he said. Some students would have to wait as long as 30 minutes during the transfer process from one school to the next.
Currently, the district operates separate bus runs for elementary, and middle school/high school students. There are 57 bus routes that average a total of 777,000 miles per year in the eight-town district.
According to information from the superintendent’s office, the school district currently annually spends a total of $1.5 million in salaries, diesel, repairs and maintenance, parts, supplies and tires for bus runs.
School officials said the benefits of a single bus run would include fewer annual miles on buses and middle school and high school students would not have to get on the bus so early in the morning. One bus schedule would also be easier for parents with children at both the elementary and the middle school/high school level, officials said.
Despite the decision, Colpitts said officials have identified $110,000 in transportation expenditures to help reduce the 2011-12 budget.
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