School committee hears concerns on hard-surface bus practices

After a parent raised concerns at a Site Committee meeting of the Mt. Pleasant Board of Education, the school district may revisit its hard surface bus route practices.

When bad weather prevents buses from traveling on gravel roads, routes and stops change to drive only on hard surfaces, and students on gravel roads need to go to a central location to be picked up.

Superintendent John Henriksen said a parent spoke to school board members at the committee meeting on June 3 to question the number of days the school used hard surface routes last year and communication around the routes.

Henriksen said some parents have been confused about when and where kids should be picked up on hard surface routes. The school used hard surfaces routes 10 days during the last school year.

“One of the things that they would like to see was a better defined pickup schedule when we run hard surface routes so that families could know exactly where and when those kids could be picked up,” Henriksen said.

He said last spring there were days when students in certain areas could be picked up on gravel roads, but others had to use the hard surface routes, which may have caused confusion.

No specific changes have been made to the system, but Henriksen said the school would be working on improving communication of pickup times and locations.