Amity >> In an effort to eliminate 45-minute school bus rides, the Daniel Boone Area School Board may purchase a new school bus routing software called Transfinder.
School board members said at their Nov. 14 meeting that the trade-off might be consolidated bus stops and more students walking to school.
If approved, Transfinder would replace the district’s existing software program, BusTracks.
The district would begin using it July 1 to map out the 2017-18 bus routes.
Transportation Committee Chairman Dane Ochis-O’Neil said he expects the Transfinder software to simplify the difficult task of plotting bus routes.
“You input where the students live, and where the stops are,” said Ochis-O’Neil, adding that the district will compare the two softwares.
“We’ll test the routing – what would happen if we remove half the stops?”
“Bus rides are too long, and I think it’s because there are too many stops,” said member Jeff Scott, adding, “in a neighborhood, there are stops every two blocks.”
Board member Richard Martino said there are also “too many areas” in the district “where we don’t make them walk.”
“The criteria for how far [students] can walk – a half-mile – with or without sidewalks,” said Martino, adding, “but the first parameter is limiting bus rides to 45 minutes.”
Martino said the use of a modifiable transportation software like Transfinder will be important as the district continues to phase out the Birdsboro Elementary Center.
Due to decreasing student enrollment, the school board voted last spring to begin moving students out of Birdsboro Elementary and into Amity Elementary Center and Monocacy Elementary Center.
They said it is their intention to start closing Birdsboro Elementary in February 2017.
Third grade was relocated this year from Birdsboro Elementary to Amity Elementary.
Birdsboro Elementary’s fourth grade class will be moved to Amith Elementary for 2017-18, and fifth grade relocated there the following year.
Martino said bussing third grade students from Birdsboro to Amity Elementary has resulted in their “waiting” more than an hour each day.
“[The third grade] students are leaving home a half-hour early now to get to Amity Elementary Center early, and sit and wait a half-hour (at school), and then again in the afternoon.”
