Are you looking to unravel the secrets of efficient school transportation management? We've got Amy Manns, the new transportation director of the Jefferson R-7 School District, sharing her strategies on enhancing traffic flow and bus safety without draining your pockets. We're dissecting the new start and dismissal times at Danby School and their role in easing traffic congestion. We'll also disclose how we plan to streamline high school traffic exit and discuss the impact of Plattin School's dismissal time on the overall traffic situation.
Harness the power of community involvement as we discuss its crucial role in providing substitute bus drivers to ensure student safety. Discover why a mere five-minute delay in Danby's start times could be a game changer in battling traffic congestion. Amy will enlighten you on the importance of bus safety and the protocol when encountering school bus stop signs. We'll also emphasize the necessity of maintaining long-term traffic flow observations throughout the year. So, join us as we collectively strategize for a safe, efficient and successful school year.
Are you looking to unravel the secrets of efficient school transportation management? We've got Amy Manns, the new transportation director of the Jefferson R-7 School District, sharing her strategies on enhancing traffic flow and bus safety without draining your pockets. We're dissecting the new start and dismissal times at Danby School and their role in easing traffic congestion. We'll also disclose how we plan to streamline high school traffic exit and discuss the impact of Plattin School's dismissal time on the overall traffic situation.
Harness the power of community involvement as we discuss its crucial role in providing substitute bus drivers to ensure student safety. Discover why a mere five-minute delay in Danby's start times could be a game changer in battling traffic congestion. Amy will enlighten you on the importance of bus safety and the protocol when encountering school bus stop signs. We'll also emphasize the necessity of maintaining long-term traffic flow observations throughout the year. So, join us as we collectively strategize for a safe, efficient and successful school year.
Speaker 1:
Hey, welcome. I'm honored today to be joined by Amy Manns, recently hired as our transportation director for the Jefferson R-7 School District. We talked about doing this podcast to cover the Danby change in time after school and how we're going to look at that, and also just some bus protocols as well. But really, since we started looking at this in the last week, we've come to the reality that we are reaching out to you. I think as a school district we don't always know how to best market ourselves or get the message out. We need you in the community. We really need at least two sub bus drivers. We lost one recently due to their personal circumstances at that time of year. But we can really use the community's help. So if you have a CDL or you're interested in helping out, if you would contact Amy, you can always call our central office and we'll direct you that way at 636-937-7940 and we'll get you directed into that office. But thank you for joining me. I want to put that plug into our community. This is one of the short form, really informative as we prepare for the school year.
Speaker 1:
So Amy and myself and some other administrators and individuals in our community started looking at our traffic situation in school, we took three approaches. The first approach is what could we do for the short term, for this upcoming year, to improve our traffic without spending money on that solution? In other words, it's something we could do at a very, very, very minimal cost to help. And what we found was is that we believe we can help the PM traffic exit out of our facility a little bit quicker, a little bit more efficiently. We'll talk about that in just a minute. I want the public to know that. I'm going to skip to the third part. And we've also looked at some long-range road planning. That's been a fun endeavor. That would include not only helping our current situation, but if we were to add buildings in the district at some point. That's not anything that's around the corner or urgent to look at, but I think always looking at that as a healthy thing for a community. And somewhere in the middle is this kind of how can we help the AM traffic? And that'll be a study we engage in this year. That may require some budgetary funds to do and we really don't know how that'll play out. We really want to study that this year. But thank you for joining me. I'm going to talk about. The first change we're going to make is free buildings Jefferson High School, telegraph and Plattin. Their times start and end times will not change.
Speaker 1:
We've really looked at this and we're going to bump Danby back from 7:30 in the morning to 7:35. So a five-minute bump back to 7:35 on a start time and then a 2:45 dismissal. There's a lot of reasons for it. Number one there's just simply the distance between the high school and Danby. And then you look at Danby to Telegraph's much shorter 7.10 of a mile. I measured out years ago getting ready for the homecoming parade, so I remember that exactly 7.10 of a mile down Blue Jay Way. You also have a lot of high school students driving out of there.
Speaker 1:
So when the 2:35 bell hits, the high school traffic will begin exiting out the gentleman he usually stands, john, who stands at the end of Dooling Hollow and where the Danby comes out, right in front of the church, there he's going to move down and really serve to help guide traffic out of the high school in an efficient manner. That should run for 10 minutes. So at that point the middle school traffic will be going in to pick up their students. The students will not be released before the bell so they will be released at 2:45. That will be a huge change. At 2:45, they've got a plan to get the kids ready to go on the bus, but all classrooms will exit. All the students go out to prepare and pick up. At about 2:45, john will come up and shut down traffic coming from the high school to make sure the Danby lots leaving.
Speaker 2:
Which should help with the flow.
Speaker 1:
Yes, which should help with the flow, and then the buses will come in, come in right behind them and pick up the kids. At that point, dan, I'm sorry, Telegraph is on its normal dismissal time and they should be flowing as we're loading at the middle school and bring those buses over, sort of kind of like this ballet. So we really think that's going to make a huge difference. So the point I want to make with Amy here because Amy brought something to my attention is that time between Danby and Telegraph things we observed years past, and that is traffic could back up trying to get the Telegraph down Danby.
Speaker 2:
Correct.
Speaker 1:
So you brought that to my attention. I appreciate it. We looked at it hard so we may reach out to the high school students or parents. Come down from the high school and Danby at some point if that becomes an issue, because one of two things well, what's going to happen is either you're going to be sitting waiting to get on Dooling Hollow or you'll be stuck on Dooling Hollow waiting and it's going to back it up, or you just you may actually just wait in the lots a little bit longer until you can see that traffic moving, because then everything should be flowing out of Telegraph. That's the one thing we see. It could be a hiccup and we would reach out to you. Just know it's coming from a good place to keep traffic moving.
Speaker 1:
But I appreciate you bringing that to our attention and everything at Plattin from there should carry on as normal. They'll be dismissed right at three o'clock for parent pick-up and then the buses will come over and pick up about three o'clock, three ten somewhere in there. We'll be monitoring this. We'll also be monitoring stuff in the mornings and picking long-term snapshots over the year to see how traffic is flowing. We'll be keeping a close eye on that. That kind of gets us to the start time again. Danby, start time is going to push back five minutes and the goal is to really, without using district funds, to attack the PM traffic and get it cleared out of there.
Speaker 2:
Yes.
Speaker 1:
Let's talk about. You've been very quiet. I apologize, I've talked so much here, no worries, Now I'm going to turn you loose here. Let's talk about bus safety In general. You talk about the after the school. Go with the flow. You have lined this out very well with me. What's going on with?
Speaker 2:
that the bus is going with the flow of traffic. When we're moving amongst the buildings, going from building to building, we're just trying to go with the flow which normally we have people out there directing us. I know sometimes it can be frustrating for parents that they're getting stopped while the buses are trying to pull through from school to school. We appreciate your patience. We're trying to run on a timeline, same as parents that are trying to get to work. We appreciate when you allow the time for us to get across when you're stopped. Thank you first of all for that.
Speaker 2:
My next thing is I have a lot of people ask me about school bus stop signs. I have people say when the buses start flashing yellow, I don't know if I'm supposed to stop or just go, because I know the stop sign is coming out. The thing is, if you see the yellow lights come on and they're flashing, it means stop. It means they're getting ready to throw out that stop sign to pick up a child or to let a child off. If they're flashing, just start slowing down and coming to a stop before you reach the bus. We greatly appreciate that. It also saves our SRO a trip from going to anybody's home.
Speaker 1:
I think you had a great quote on that, something about nobody should be in a rush to something. What was that?
Speaker 2:
Nobody should pass a bus in a rush.
Speaker 1:
I think that's great advice that can really help us out before and after school. I think it is tricky sometimes for drivers coming down a highway and you see those signs. What am I supposed to do? Stop, just stop.
Speaker 2:
I think you're doing the best thing for the bus and the children on it.
Speaker 1:
Let's move on to the no passing. I guess we kind of covered that already.
Speaker 2:
Yes yes, yes, don't pass a bus when it's a stop sign's out.
Speaker 1:
And so like the last topic we have to discuss today is designated stops.
Speaker 2:
Yes, designated bus stops and the importance of them, of being at your designated stop, and most of the time, if your children are getting picked up at the end of your driveway, that's not an issue. They know where their designated bus stop is. When we're in large communities with groupings of bus stops and your child wants to go down to their friend's house, that can put them in the danger of walking down on the side of the road, somebody not seeing them, of mom and dad wondering if they made it to school when they weren't at their bus stop, if mom and dad drive by and they weren't at their bus stop. Those are questions that we actually we get phone calls on and parents are worried, like I know. My kid went to the bus stop this morning but I didn't see my kid at the bus stop. Are they at school now? So it's important to stress to your children that their designated bus stop is their safety zone and that they need to be where they're supposed to be.
Speaker 1:
Anything else.
Speaker 2:
I wanted to ask parents I know there's a lot of confusion with this sometimes the before your bus stop pick up time and the after. So if your bus stop pick up time in the morning is 7:20 and we ask that you be there five minutes before that and to allow our buses five minutes after that, so then it would be 7:45 to 7:20. So it would be 7:15 to 7:25. The reason for that is in the morning, whenever we leave, we sometimes get caught by the stop light, we get caught by another bus, we get caught by traffic trying to turn out of a road or onto a road with a stop sign.
Speaker 2:
Most of the time, I'd say our seven has always been good. Our crew has always been good about being there within a two minute span. Excuse me of your time, but sometimes stuff happens. There's a child that's got their backpack and we are kind enough to say, well, hurry up and go back in and get it, and then the next child got something, so they run back over there and get it. So, which also brings up the importance of trying to make sure your child is prepared to go out the door to the bus stop. So that's what I was going to ask is just that sometimes we do need that extra five minutes before their designated pick up in the morning.
Speaker 1:
Ultimately it's the goal that we get to and from schools safely in a manner I'm going to go back to the original statement we really are doing a lot of planning. It's hard to find substitutes in general, but if we could find a couple bus subs would be a huge deal to help protect those student trips, not only to and from school but also after school. To provide those opportunities as few pick ups Even if we could find two would be awesome. So if you have any help there again 636-937-7940 any help there would be greatly appreciated. In summary, just be smart around the buses, give them some grace. And also the Danby start times being pushed back five minutes and I think you'll start to see that flow.
Speaker 1:
We're going to attack what we can without any district funds being used for the PM. Dismissals will kind of follow our guidance there. I think it's going to smote. You know, smoothly, go, go very smoothly. You may ask for help on the telegraph pick up if we see that line backing up. But I'm ready for the school year. It's been great working with you this summer. I know we're going to have a great year, no matter what's in front of us, and we love being a part of this community. Thank you.