As we started the new school year in the Lower Moreland Township School District, I wanted to review all of what goes into planning for public school routes and, hopefully, a safe and secure trip each and every day.
During the summer months, students are graduated, enrolled, promoted to new grade levels, and moved to new schools as each student transitions to the new school year. Once the rollover of existing students is completed, a large student file is generated and sent to our routing company with the knowledge of last years’ routes and trying to ensure that most routes stay the same. As our enrollment in the District continues to grow, there will be changes to bus routes based upon number of students who can ride safely on a bus. The District tries extremely hard to maintain safe and efficient routes each year while being cognizant to not elongate a bus ride because of too many stops. The District enrollment is currently around 2,400 students and we must schedule transportation for the majority of these students.
One of the changes that will take effect this year is scheduling bus runs for the new homes at the Stone Mill of Huntingdon Valley and the Greens at Huntingdon Valley sites that will be occurring during the 2019/20 school year. One of the most difficult tasks to accomplish is to safely pick up students as some houses are completed while others are still being worked on. Please know that the District will look very hard at safety concerns in those developments while work is still being done and may have to institute temporary bus stops until full construction is complete. This is a daunting task as map programs have to be updated with new street names and new road directions that are sometimes not even available on Google maps. The Business Office will be working diligently to accommodate these new residents as quickly and as safely as possible.
Another major issue that comes up at the beginning of the school year is the length of the bus rides, particularly in the afternoons. Most of our public school routes are multi-school runs, meaning the same bus transports students from Lower Moreland High School, Murray Avenue School, and then, finally, Pine Road Elementary School. At any time during a school day, if a bus starts to run behind, this will affect the remainder of the subsequent routes. Each Principal is very aware of the tight times between dismissals, and each try to facilitate the dismissal process as quickly as possible. That being said, delays will occur especially in the first few weeks as students, bus drivers and the general public get used to buses being back on the road. Additionally, at the Pine Road Elementary School, we currently have 26 buses scheduled to bring students home. It takes some time to dismiss all of the students in a safe and secure matter. There will be buses that do not roll out of the bus loop until at least 15 minutes later. Please know that we take the safety of all of our students very seriously and the dismissal process at Pine Road does take some time but is done so in the most efficient and safe way. After the first few weeks, the dismissal process gets better and bus times improve. We ask for your understanding and patience, especially in the first few weeks, and we are hopeful that there are no road projects that can impede traffic in our District.
Our goal each year is the safe and efficient transportation of all of our school-age students. We believe, with our transportation partners--First Student and the MCIU, that we will accomplish this goal. We will always monitor situations from a safety and security lens. We look forward to a safe and enjoyable 2019-2020 school year!
