The Lakeland school board quizzed Durham representatives over bus routing issues, employee screening procedures and safety records at the Nov. 10 business meeting.
Durham School Services has been in the news this school year for dozens of accidents and a driver accused of on-the-job marijuana possession in the greater Memphis area.
Durham’s regional manager, David Brabender, said the accident rate for all of Shelby County’s buses actually has been lower this year than usual.
He also believes the media have been overzealous in reporting on this topic, but Durham continues to improve training and review drivers’ practices to prevent accidents.
Most of the accidents have been with buses hitting fixed objects (such as a parked car or a fire hydrant), he said.
Brabender mentioned the difficulty of ramping up in a short time frame for the area’s new school districts, including recruiting, screening, hiring and training drivers.
The company also has worked through more bus mechanical issues than expected, and they have placed a mechanic on the lot at least an hour and a half before the buses run.
School board vice chair Laura Harrison said the biggest problem for Lakeland’s bus routes has been poor communications between regular and substitute drivers (such as correcting street names or turnaround spots).
Board member Teresa Henry said she’s heard complaints about buses arriving too early or as much as 45 minutes late, and Durham’s phone representatives have been giving callers an “I don’t care” impression.
Most of the timing and route issues have settled down, Brabender said, and the district also has completed its process of reducing the number of buses and making routes as efficient as possible.
He noted that one problem was that regular drivers were making “sweetheart stops” (expanding the route by making a special stop in front of a home, without adding that to the official route) and not updating the route information for substitute drivers.
He said he hopes training has resolved the poor customer service issue of Durham’s Collierville office referring parents’ calls elsewhere.
Brabender also listed some of the highlights in screening and training drivers, noting that Durham’s standards are higher than those mandated by the state:
- Applicants are declined if they have more than two moving violations or two accidents in three years
- A psychological survey screens them for safety consciousness.
- They must pass a third-party background check.
- They must pass a fingerprint screening that is run through the FBI’s database.
- After multiple additional reviews, the drivers prepare to take their tests and are screened further during that process for their on-time arrival and attentiveness.
- They receive skills training.
- Durham’s state-registered personnel administer the skills test.
Board chairman Kevin Floyd acknowledge that Durham has improved but also stressed that the persistent issues must be fixed.
“The bottom line is this — we’re, what, 40 percent through the school year, and we still don’t have this right,” Floyd said. “And it’s got to be right. We’ve got to be able to pick kids up and get them to school safely. … Sixty days’ notice or not, we all agreed to the terms.”
He continued, “We are getting some responses from parents that are very happy with their drivers, and I think it’s important to say that, because there is some positive feedback. But we’ve got to be able to get kids to school on time and in a safe manner. It’s the most important thing we do, to provide for the safety of children.”
Lakeland Prep
Southern Educational Strategies (SES), a Memphis-based consulting company, presented two timelines for building Lakeland Prep. The school board wants the project to be complete in time for the new campus to open in August 2017. Dr. James Mitchell of SES said that is possible if the site is selected and purchased quickly (by mid-February 2015) and they can get utilities to the property by then. There will be other milestones for the project to stay on track, but that is a critical one.
As an alternative, he gave a timeline for the school to open in August 2018.
SES and the school board are planning on a Jan. 15 public meeting to get more input from the public. It will likely occur at Lakeland Elementary School, but Mitchell said he expects it to be made up of smaller focus groups rather than a big cafeteria meeting.
High ratings
In other business, the school board and teachers gave high ratings to Horrell for achieving five objectives in his first evaluation, with a total overall score of 4.53 on a scale of one to five.
The score included a detailed evaluation by teachers, totaling an average of 4.59. Board attorney Chris Patterson said, “I think it can be categorized as nothing but an overwhelmingly positive evaluation by the teachers.”
Other business
The school board also:
- Made an offer to hire another special education assistant to meet the needs of additional enrollment.
- Celebrated the success of the Veterans’ Day program at Lakeland Elementary School on Nov. 7 with the Lakeland Elementary Glee Club and Arlington High School’s brass ensemble performing in honor of vets.
- Met with Arlington and Bartlett school superintendents to coordinate inclement weather plans.
- Met with Arlington superintendent Tammy Mason to talk about transition plans when the new Lakeland Prep (a combined middle and high school) opens.
- Approved an agreement that spells out how the Shelby County Board of Commissioners will oversee the use of its funds for some capital improvements at Lakeland Elementary School.
- The agreement is based on the county board’s approval of a budget in May that included those projects, which are the re-roofing of Lakeland Elementary School ($750,000) and the replacement of 83 HVAC units ($240,000). For more information, see the agreement online at lakelandk12.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/2014-CIP-Agreement-with-SCS-.pdf.
- Approved the creation of a textbook review committee.
- Re-elected board members to their current positions for another year: Floyd, chairman; Harrison, vice chair; Wright, Tennessee Legislative Network (TLN) representative; and Kelley Hale, liaison to the Arlington Community Schools district.
- Agreed to cancel the board’s December work session and reschedule the monthly business meeting to 6:30 p.m. Dec. 1.
Written by Carolyn Bahm, Express editor. Contact her at (901) 433-9138 or via email to barlett.editor@journalinc.com.
