Madison bus woes mushroom

By DEBBIE PALINSKY - For the Star Beacon
Star Beacon

August 25, 2008 11:39 pm

— MADISON — Bus delays and problems Monday morning and afternoon for the Madison Local School District with the private bus company Community Bus Services were called “unacceptable” by many furious parents who made many angry calls to the schools and the transportation department.
“We collected a lot of calls today, and every call was returned. We had severe problems with our egress plan in the Red Bird area particularly.” CBS President Terrence V. Thomas said.
“The first day of school is always a tough one, today just happened to be tougher than usual.” said Superintendent Matt Chojnacki. “There were some problems in the morning but the problems with the afternoon busing were particularly bad and the delays just seemed to mushroom.”
Michelle Popovich said she was willing to give CBS the benefit of doubt and realized that delays are normal for the first day of school, but found the delays on Monday ridiculous.
“It was absolutely horrible.” She said.
Popovich said her crying daughter got off the bus an hour later than normal along with five other children, who were to be dropped off at another stop.
“I saw fear in their eyes and they were all crying.” She said, “The kids got off the bus complaining that they were driving around lost and going in circles. They didn’t want to wait to get to their stops, they just wanted off. My daughter wasn’t even dropped off in the same place she was picked up.”
Popovich said she noticed the driver driving with a handful of papers, as if she was trying to figure out where she was going next. She questions why the drivers weren’t using global positioning satellite devices.
“Kids were put on the wrong bus, some not even picked up at all, brothers and sisters separated and then the drivers driving in circles because they are lost. I think this is absolutely horrible.” said parent Rebecca Fruscella, who lives in the Homer Nash area, “They need to fire them all and start over.”
Thomas said there were kids that were on the wrong buses, which caused even further delays when the bus drivers tried to get them to the correct destinations.
Fruscella did receive a return call back from the transportation supervisor Kevin Costello, who assured her that there were some problems but the next few days would be better.
Thomas said he was extremely concerned with the problems that occurred and said they are reviewing the problems that happened during the day and implementing immediate changes, which include adding additional staff to the buses to ensure these same problems are not repeated today.
“I’m offering no good excuse of what happened today.” he said, “We’ll do everything we can to make sure it never happens again.”
Madison’s school board hired CBS to transport students after negotiations broke down with the Ohio Association of Public School Employees Local 238, representing district bus drivers.

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