Thumbnail photo by Jessica Cejnar Andrews
Jenna Lussier raved about her bus drivers and staff.
Four days after students returned to class, the new transportation director told Del Norte Unified School District trustees that her staff has been working extra time to make sure Klamath students are picked up. She also mentioned special efforts being made for youngsters at Redwood and Pine Grove schools.
“We are working diligently to get our children where they need to go,” Lussier said. “We had a couple of hiccups, but I think today those hiccups have been resolved…. I just want to thank my drivers because they’re making it awesome.”
In a presentation Thursday, Lussier told trustees that five new bus drivers are in training while a sixth will be testing as a backup driver. Those drivers will receive specialized training through the California Highway Patrol at its Arcata office and will take the California School Bus test next week, she said.
The actual driving portion of the test will be held between Sept. 8 and Sept. 18 in Arcata, she said.
“We actually have a few more people that have already been fingerprinted and are very energetic that want to come and drive for us as well,” Lussier told trustees. “We hope to just keep our training going and get more people through. We would love to be able to have some subs and let them take other sub positions so we can fulfill that throughout the district.”
Lussier took on the role of transportation director on June 15, replacing interim transportation director Garrett Hatcher and Hatcher’s predecessor Christopher Armington.
Her presentation to the Board of Trustees on Thursday comes about five months after Klamath parents complained to the School Board about buses arriving late to pick up their students, which makes them late to their classes.
It also comes after DNUSD offered $5,000 signing bonuses as a retention incentive for eligible school bus drivers.
“Historically around 10 years ago, we had around 20 drivers,” DNUSD Director of Communications Michael Hawkins told Redwood Voice Community News. “COVID came and went and the attrition brought us down to nine drivers.”
With the five drivers in training, according to Hawkins, DNUSD now has 13 that are currently active. The short-term goal, he said, is to hire up to 17 or 18 drivers over the next year.
Lussier also introduced trustees to Transfinder, the new school bus routing software DNUSD will be using. Transfinder includes Viewfinder, which allows school staff to determine what route a child needs to be on.
“We’ve never had that connection between the schools and transportation,” she said. “I think that’s going to be wonderful.”
The program’s Wayfinder tool will allow parents to determine what bus their child is on using an identification tag or their school lunch number, Lussier said. DNUSD will also use Servicefinder, which track the maintenance needs of both the school buses and the district’s white fleet, she said.
“We have never had an inventory system in the shop,” she said. “If an oil change happens on a bus or a white fleet vehicle, we can scan everything that goes in that vehicle and we can link it to our fuel system. We will know.a running total of what each vehicle is costing us on a daily or monthly basis so we can then look at our totals and start changing appropriately.”
According to Hawkins, one challenge has been communicating with parents to ensure they’re getting accurate and timely information regarding potential route cancellations and other issues. Transfinder will replace the current system that was old and unreliable, he said.
Finally, new Motorola radios have been installed in DNUSD buses, Lussier said.
“They turn on and they work,” she said
In addition to installing a 50 watt repeater at the Mike Whalen Stadium at neighboring Del Norte High School, Lussier said two antennas at Camp 6 near Gasquet and at Red Mountain in the Klamath area were expected to receive FCC clearance on Friday.
“They will go live and, cross our fingers, we will be able to talk to Klamath and Gasquet as much as we want,” she said.
According to DNUSD Superintendent Jeff Harris the repeaters at Camp 6 and Red Mountain are “future proofed” for 10 to 15 years.
On May 4, the DNUSD Board of Trustees approved upgrades to the transportation department’s 20-year-old communication system. Replacing the repeaters and antennas at Red Mountain and Camp 6 cost DNUSD about $110,517.
