The presentation document is a disappointment in two ways- the lack of detail in connection to recommendations and the lack of explanation in connection to questions the public has had for nearly a year surrounding the management of this program.
I won’t spend much time on the first area as I’ll have more to say after the presentation. I will only say I had concerns right off the bat with this bullet point from the presentation:
“Hazardous” is a term used in this assessment to describe a condition which our training and experience leads us to believe presents a moderate or greater risk based upon the totality of circumstances.” (emphasis added)
I think our community has had enough recommendations based on “expert opinion”- from the municipal building to reconfiguration to Building Thinking Classroom – we are done. We want operationalized definitions based on evidenced criteria – especially since just a few short years ago, our District leadership proclaimed that all our roads were safe to justify the reconfiguration.
The very basis of the presentation already undermines the rest – so whoever is presenting needs to do far better than “this is what we believe based on our expertise.”
Now, onto the latter.
The public deserves answers.
The presentation points out that some courtesy busing areas found to be “non-hazardous, unnecessary and inconsistent” and also indicates that “transportation management” as a deficiency.
Again, I’m not really trusting the presentation’s basis for determining “hazardous” v. “non-hazardous.” which basically amounts to “based on our expertise” but even with that in mind:
What criteria did the District use to determine who should receive Courtesy Busing and which families had to pay for Subscription Busing?
How many families (really this time) received each, and why hasn’t the District provided the public with this information?
How did the District go from “all roads are safe” to “some roads are so unsafe that we need to provide free bussing” in two years?
This cost our community resources, and the process that led up to this needs to be held accountable. Hopefully, the presentation will provide the public with more objective criteria on categories and answers to the questions we have been asking.