WakeEd

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The WakeEd blog is devoted to discussing and answering questions about the major issues facing the Wake County school system: the reassignment of thousands of students, the conversion of traditional-calendar schools to a year-round schedule, the district's response to growth and the school construction program.

WakeEd is maintained by The News & Observer's Wake schools reporter, T. Keung Hui. While Keung posts information and analysis on the issues, keep us posted on your suggestions, questions, tips and what you're doing to cope with the changes in Wake's schools.

The cost of Wake bus miscues

Submitted by KeungHui on 07/31/2008 - 06:00

What should be the penalty for a school bus driver who drops a student off at the wrong stop?

As noted in today's article, Amanda Medlin thinks the driver who let her 5-year-old boy off four miles from home shouldn't be allowed back behind the wheel. The driver, according to Medlin, is now running a different route.

School officials said they disciplined the driver. Medlin calls it a "slap on the wrist" to allow the driver to still be operating a bus.

The school district is attributing this July 9 incident, along with one that happened July 16, to the confusion that happens with buses at the start of the school year. The reason doesn't wash with Medlin.

"I understand the first couple of weeks are hard," Medlin said. "But if a driver loses a child by putting them off on the wrong bus stop they have to be he held accountable. It's inexcusable."

Medlin said they don't have to fire the driver. She said they could have him do something such as answer the phones. She just doesn't want him operating a bus.

In the July 16 incident, the driver threw out a 6-year-old student who got on the wrong bus. The driver, who later resigned, should have let the child stay on the bus because it was still going to the right school.

In Medlin's case, the district isn't identifying the driver, But Medlin says it's Donnie Womack.

Womack, who declined comment, has worked for Wake since August 2005. He was named one of Wake's 2005-06 Outstanding School Bus Drivers.

The problem with cracking the whip too hard on drivers is that Wake never has enough of them. The pay is not good. In Womack's case, he's making $19,312 a year.

Many Wake bus drivers are single mothers who want health insurance coverage for their children. Retired people also account for many drivers.

Comments

and seriously, miscues? Try endangerment

Sat, 08/02/2008 - 10:55 — bigwinnie

mis·cue (mĭs-kyōō') Pronunciation Key n.
Games A stroke in billiards that misses or just brushes the ball because of a slip of the cue.
A mistake.

intr.v. mis·cued, mis·cu·ing, mis·cues

To make a miscue.
To miss a stage cue.

en·dan·ger /ɛnˈdeɪndʒeɪr/ Pronunciation Key -
–verb (used with object) to expose to danger; imperil: It was foolish to endanger your life in that way. origin: 1400–50; late ME; see en-1, danger]

—Related forms
en·dan·ger·ment, noun

a day late, a dollar short N&O?

Sat, 08/02/2008 - 07:56 — bigwinnie

http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/editorials/story/1162405.html
The response of the Wake County schools to a couple of miscues involving students riding school buses is not adequate. And the incidents themselves have stirred up reaction, justifiably so.
What happened, at the start of the year-round school calendar, was that a 6-year-old boy from North Forest Pines Elementary School in North Raleigh got on the wrong bus. The driver of that bus returned the child to his stop, and left him there alone. School officials said the driver, who has resigned, should have taken the boy to school.

And then there was 5-year-old Austin Medlin, a kindergarten student coming home from his first day at school. He was let off at the wrong stop, four miles from home. He went to a strang-er's house, and that person got in touch with his mother. School officials say the driver was "appropriately disciplined." Austin's mother, Amanda Medlin, doesn't think that driver should be driving anymore, and that feeling is understandable.

In either of these cases, a catastrophe could have occurred. System spokesman Bill Poston, in saying "The first couple of days when classes begin can be confusing," comes too close to dismissing the seriousness of these mistakes. Officials who say the vast majority of students didn't have a problem are doing the same. Parents entrust their most precious possessions to the schools, and rightly expect the schools to do their job. No mistakes, when it comes to safety, can be tolerated, and attempts to explain them are insulting. The school system needs to do whatever it takes to guarantee safety for all, and if that means stationing more adults on buses, so be it.

The school system needs to make it clear it understands the importance of seeing that what happened never happens again. These episodes are the kinds of things that alienate parents and raise public skepticism, besides endangering children.

Remember Charlie Taylor!?

Fri, 08/01/2008 - 01:00 — Randy Rockett (not verified)

Return Charlie Taylor to his job now!!! Why is Charlie Taylor not still driving for this school and Donnie Womack is?

Seriously-Amanda Medlin, you try to drive a bus for one route. Just once. Better yet; ride along once and see how wonderful our drivers are. You'd be amazed how talented thy are.

This attitude of "it's easier to burn a barn down than it is to build one" seems to run rampant among these mothers. Let's fix these concerns and not assign people to answering telephones.

Final question: hands up if you think Mama Medlin took the time to speak with Mr. Womack about her concern? That's what I thought.

T. Keung Hui ROCKS!!!

Pfft

Sat, 08/02/2008 - 09:34 — Bob_Sconce

Had it been my child, "speaking" with the bus driver would not be a good description of what would have happened. "Tearing several new orifices" would be closer, and I'm not sure that I mean that figuratively. We're not talking about something like a kid leaving his lunchbox on the bus -- we're talking about leaving a young child someplace where he/she's not supposed to be and then driving off.

As for why Donnie Womack is still driving, I don't know. As I posted elsewhere, we don't know exactly what happened -- his list of "kid X gets dropped off at place Y" could have been wrong, in which case he would have little blame. (And, if so, I'd want to know who in the transportation department gets canned...)

this particular "goof"

Thu, 07/31/2008 - 12:44 — Anonymous (not verified)

...as it was so headlined in today's paper is just another of many arguments for going back to neighborhood schools. Yes, it isn't excusable for bus drivers to be so careless--but let's face it, you put your child on a bus with someone you don't know and you take chances that they aren't thinking of your child's welfare. It's just a job to most of these drivers judging by the traffic infractions I see them committing and the fact I see way too many yakking on their cell phones when they should be driving safely. I believe there was an incident where a 7-year-old little girl was sexually molested by another student 4-5 years ago while on a school bus--where was the bus driver then? This latest "goof" doesn't surprise me in the least.

So you ask...

Thu, 07/31/2008 - 12:39 — g88ky07

"Parking fees where is the outrage"

According to Lori millberg it's the CC's fault because THEY did not give the BoE their full budget requested amount.

IT'S ALWAYS someone else's fault according to Lori, Patti, Rosa and the GoaT!

Whose fault will it be when the bond fails Lori??
hmmmmmmmmmmmm.........................

It's the size, stupid.....

Thu, 07/31/2008 - 11:12 — Wuptdo

Once again, another justification for breaking the "Beast" apart into 3 or 4 districts, starting with giving Raleigh it's school system back.

In this case, just a bad error in judgment, so I think a slap on the wrist is in order. "do-do" happens.

The district needs a better

Thu, 07/31/2008 - 10:31 — Tammy (not verified)

The district needs a better policey on on letting children off the bus..When we lived in Ohio a kindergartner could not be let off the bus unless a parent or a designated person was there to greet the child. Bob said it best the parents are lucky that they heard from this i child again-or even better the bus driver should be be thankful that nothing happenned to this child. This driver should be let go but then again the district is probably hurting for bus drivers so they can't fire him!

Parking fees where is the

Thu, 07/31/2008 - 09:45 — Anonymous (not verified)

Parking fees where is the outrage

Wake up, since when did it become feasible to raise the parking fees at our high schools to $170.00. Who pays these fees? Its our kids who work all summer to have money to pay for gas, insurance and now the BOE wants to take advantage of them and force this upon them.

Shame on them, are they so desperate that they would have to get monies in this horrible way and why didn't they bring this out in the open so all would know what was going on BEFORE it became policy at all high schools? Just another example of the underhanded things this BOE does everyday.

I wonder what else they will try to slide by us.

This just yet another

Thu, 07/31/2008 - 09:40 — Anonymous (not verified)

This just yet another example of a school system that is way out of touch with its constituents. The BOE as well as Del need to resign or at least admit they are so out of touch with people and what needs to be done it isn't even funny. If the BOE would get away from busing kids around so much and let them stay close to their homes and let parents be responsible for getting their kids to and from school each day this kind of things would never happen. But they want to be on the national platform and toot their horns about all the alleged "good" things that the WCPSS stands for.

HaHa, give me a break. Look at the test scores, and graduation rate and then tell me this school system is so good.

Miscues ? Goofs ? Tragedy !

Thu, 07/31/2008 - 09:30 — al_in_garner

Miscues, goofs and an administraion that "may discuss transportation after two bus mistakes" will rise by an order of magnitude when a wandering five or six year old student is hurt, killed or picked off by a predator.

Then it moves into the relm of heartbreak, tragedy or wosre: a preventable incident. Bring on the lawyers !

Luck is not a plan. Better pay attention to your knitting here "High Dollar Del" . . . this is one of the details you get paid the big bucks to manage.

Agree 100%

Thu, 07/31/2008 - 09:43 — Voice_of_Reason_

This would of got a military commander fired and they make a lot less.

As I said before

Thu, 07/31/2008 - 08:52 — Voice_of_Reason_

Just don't treat the symptoms, go for the cure. The press needs to persue this one. What had been done to prevent this after the first time? How many times has this happened before? Why aren't the Transportation people being held responsible? And I could add if the later question's answer is nothing... Why isn't Dr. Burns being asked to resign? If this is not persued expect it to continue until a child is missing or dead. And then maybe the blame game can go to the media also. Reporting the incident and asking if the bus driver was fired is not enough.

Fool me once,....

Do the Math

Thu, 07/31/2008 - 07:38 — Anonymous (not verified)

We pay the people around our children a pittance to watch over them and expect the kind of care you'd get from a combination of a bodyguard/certified British nanny/parent. What do you expect?

I am sick of hearing about parents who can't accept mistakes in others. I really like how Amanda Medlin outed the other bus driver, too. Well done. You should be SO proud of yourself.

Easy and wrong answer

Thu, 07/31/2008 - 06:16 — Dadof3

Not as a rule, but generally, the easy and wrong answer is to blame the operator, in this case, the bus driver. Regardless, management should be held responsible, whether public or private. $19k is a pittance and I'm not arguing for more -- acknowledge that it is not a lot of money. What training program is in place? What documentation is on-hand for the drivers? What operator audits does WCPSS perform? There are ways to manage this.

Did you find yourself snickering at the idea of WCPSS managing something well, too? In fairness, the larger the enterprise, the less agile it becomes. I'm thinking Jabba the Hutt of education

Break down the system into manageable parts. Remove all but Ron from the BoE. We'll get this right yet.

Well...

Thu, 07/31/2008 - 09:13 — Bob_Sconce

There really isn't enough public information about whether the driver should be blamed or not. Consider two situations:

1. The district has a policy of requiring bus drivers to check young students against a list of kids who should be getting off at a particular stop. The child just got off the bus without any checking by the driver that this was the child's actual stop.

2. The district does not have the above policy and the child was let off at a stop with a name similar to his own street and one of the other kids said that this was really where the child lived.

If the situation was #1, then the driver negligently endangered a child. It could have ended up with the parents just never hearing from the child again.

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