‘Community stops’ help NHCS bus schedules be more reliable with limited drivers

NEW HANOVER COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — The first week of New Hanover County elementary schoolers being back in the classroom full time under Plan A is coming to a close.

With more children in the classroom each day, in turn, more children are riding the bus but Director of Transportation Mark Clawson says bus riders are down overall from last year and carline numbers are up.

Still, a large number of children are still taking the bus, and NHCS Transportation is working to be more efficient and safe.

“We had to reduce the capacity on buses but we also lost a lot of drivers in the past year. When you lose drivers, you gotta get efficient,” Clawson said.

On top of drivers wiping down high-touch areas, transportation staff is using ionizers to sanitize the buses twice per day, after the morning shift and following the afternoon shift. Clawson says this will remain a part of the everyday routine.

“If it doesn’t help with COVID, if it goes away, it helps with the flu and the common cold,” Clawson said. “So we’re going to maintain these cleaning procedures out into the future, I don’t see it ever ending.”

Plan A bus stops are much like Plan B, still utilizing community stops. While the community stops might be a little more inconvenient for parents to get their kids to the drop-off location in the morning, Clawson says drop-off and pick-up times have become more reliable. Typically, buses are running on schedule, but only about five minutes late if at all.

The community stop strategy allows bus drivers to make two runs, meaning picking up one bus-full, dropping them off at school, and heading back for another group. Making the most of the limited amount of bus drivers and limiting the amount of time kids spend on the bus.

“We can’t necessarily socially distance, but we can limit the amount of time each kid is on the bus,” Clawson said. “So now our buses are averaging about 16 minutes in length from the time the first kid gets on the bus to when they get off at the school and the same in the afternoon.”

Clawson says it’s usually two children per seat, but they can see up to three children per seat. In this case, they work to get them off the bus as quickly as they can.

Though kids may not be socially distanced on the bus, mask-wearing is strictly enforced.

“If they don’t have one when they get on the bus, the driver will provide one. If they take them off, they’re reminded to put them on,” Clawson said.

If problems persist, disciplinary action can be taken after a note is written to the front office of the child’s school, but Full Time Bus Driver Shawanna Anderson says kids are doing a pretty good job at following the rules.

“At first it was a little difficult, but they kinda got the hang of it,” Anderson said. “They realize, hey we’ve got to social distance and they really realized that after they started school that we gotta take this serious.”

New Hanover County Schools is still in need of bus drivers, recently hiring 6 drivers but still, 35 openings remain.