If you have questions related to the 2007 Transportation Task Force, please email your questions to: TTFQ@fcps.edu. All questions and answers will be documented on this page.


Question #1: Tuesday 10/2/2007

Q:
Is the Transportation Task Force Charter on the web site somewhere?

A:
The School Board Transportation Task Force Charter is now available within the Documents section of the web site.

Question #2: Sunday 10/7/2007

Q:
The Flip committee is interested in the following data, if you have it:

1. What percentage of special ed students are transported from door-to-door, vs. using bus stops? (We are especially interested in elementary grade students, since pre-civil twilight pickups for elementary aged children may not be an issue if they are picked up at their homes.)

2. On the "cluster bell schedule and transportation requirements" document: What do the parentheses and asterisks on the right hand (bus runs data) column mean? How do we read the bus runs data - we tried to add all the runs listed on various lines for Burke center - Jill says that Burke center currently has 18 buses, but the data show only 12 or so. Or could this be due to last year's data instead of this years? Can we get this data in a Excel spreadsheet which we can manipulate, rather than the PDF now available?

A:
Part 1
Based upon a sampling of 100 SE students now being transported by general education transportation, 89% of students are at corners and 11% are residential.

Of 851 elementary bus stops handled by SE buses, 3% are at corners and 97% are residential.

ES stops prior to 7 a.m.:

School	School Hours	Route #	Details
North Springfield	8:05 a.m - 2:40 p.m.	1	6:50 a.m. corner, and 6:56 a.m. school
Olde Creek	7:50 a.m. - 2:25 p.m.	94	6:36 a.m. home and 6:47 a.m. home, and 6:58 home
		95	6:42 a.m. home, 6:47 a.m. home, and 6:58 a.m. home
		96	6:21 a.m. home, 6:37 a.m. home, and 6:57 a.m. home
		97	6:44 a.m. home
		98	6:55 a.m. corner
Hollin Meadows	8:10 a.m. - 2::45 p.m.	99	6:47 a.m. corner, and 6:57 a.m. corner
Lees Corner	8:10 a.m. - 2:45 p.m.	97	6:44 a.m. home, and 6:48 a.m. home

Part 2
We begin the year with information from the prior year as runs are changed dramatically as we progress through September and October. It's in the bell schedule only as a general guideline and can easily be off by many buses if there is a new program or a boundary change. It's supposed to be updated every year but sometimes is not. We are in the process of updating number of buses for this school year. It will be posted when complete.

The asterisks and parentheses are for schools that are double bussed. Edison and Twain, for example, have many buses that go to both schools.

Edison 29* 3 / (1)
Twain (29*) 2 / 3

Means that 29 of the buses are shared; 3 are ED only; 2 are TW only. There is 1 SE bus at ED that drops this student as part of another run and there are 3 SE buses going into TW.

Burke:
Area 1 supports the ALC – 4 buses arrive between 7:35 – 7:40; 3 buses arrive at 1:00.

Area 2 supports the ALC – 3 buses arrive between 7:35 – 7:40; they support the Summit program with 2 buses in the afternoon at 12:30

SE has 18 buses going into the ED program between 7:10 – 7:20

The bell schedule has been posted in Word format and can be easily converted to Excel.

Question #3 Tuesday 10/9/2007

Q:
In the event HS and MS bell schedules slide back 25 minutes later than current start times and ES slides '0-10 minutes later, what is the ballpark financial impact to transportation. Realizing there will be financial implications for additional buses ($100k each), and actual expenses for each bus ($55k) we need to know how many more buses/drivers would be needed to accomplish this task. Additionally, any other expenses that we have overlooked are needed and welcomed as well.

A:
Our bell schedule group convened and considered this possibility. First, let me remind you that there are absolutely no excess resources in the afternoon. We are running school to school without a break.

To do this simply as stated would essentially mean sliding the secondary schools 15 to 25 minutes later in the afternoon but maintaining the times of the ES. That would mean that the secondary buses would be involved in their runs at the same time the ES are released. We would have to bring in a separate fleet of buses to start the elementary school runs.

If the slide was 15 minutes (25 for secondary and 10 for ES), the cost would be for 442 drivers, 442 buses + 15% spares, 142 attendants, for a recurring cost of $35.3M.

If the slide was 25 minutes, the cost would be for 622 drivers, 622 buses + 15% spares, 142 attendants, for a recurring cost of $48M.

Those numbers do not include increases in:

• Parking spaces
  
• Repair facilities
  
• Supervision, management, support staff and work space
  
  

The only way to shorten the window of operations without this extreme level of pain is to completely revise the bell schedule.

A:
All boundary determinations impact transportation. Our run coverage solutions are refined year by year to provide the best possible service to the current feeder neighborhoods. When there is a change, there are two impacts.

“Grandfathering” In most boundary issues there are parents who want their students to attend different schools and parents who want their children to remain in their current schools. Those desires are based on a variety of factors. To accommodate the parents who want their children to remain at their current schools, accommodations are granted that allow existing students to remain. Sometimes, that accommodation will apply only to the students entering the most senior class in the school. Sometimes, it allows students several grades back to remain until they grade or graduate out. In one notable example, assurance was given that all children belonging to any families currently enrolled in the school would be allowed to attend and graduate from that school, no matter the grade at the time of the agreement. The trend in recent years is to allow more grades to remain rather than move to a different school.

The impact on transportation is that in any grandfathering situation, we are providing double bussing for the neighborhood – some students going to the original school, some to the different school. Double bussing means that we use twice the number of buses for those grandfathered neighborhoods. That transportation is for regular AM and PM transport and for late runs. It becomes a management problem to track which year of the grandfathering we’re in and to deal with parents of younger students not covered by the grandfathering who have pupil placed their student to remain at the original school who eventually lose the transportation.

The second problem is the “simpler” of the two. We must either make bell schedule adjustments to ease the run changes necessary as a result of the grandfathering or, if that is not possible, to do the best with what we have, which sometimes has late arrival implications for other schools.

Question #5 Sunday 10/7/2007

Q:
1) Can the current bell schedule table that is posted on the TTF website be made available to us as an Excel spreadsheet?

2) In the column for number of buses, there are multiple numbers and some numbers are in ( ) and some are followed by an *, what do these mean? The ( ) and * are on both sides of the / and sometimes they are a second set of numbers, but sometimes there is only one number in ( ).

3) When there is only one number listed in the buses column, does that mean it's the number of regular buses and that there are no "separate" special education buses?

4) The first 5 pages of the bell schedule seem to cover every school by cluster. Then they are followed by 3 pages of Preschool listings. What is the reason for the separate list? Does it duplicate what is in the previous listing for just the preschool programs? Does this help with understanding the afternoon runs?

5) Why are some schools listed multiple times with a I, II, or III after their names (in the first 5 pages of the document)? Is this to indicate the number of buses coming from the various transportation areas to that school? Some schools are listed twice and in the program area are listed as FECEP only. Are these FECEP programs that have different bell schedules to the rest of the programs at that location/school?

5) Is there a definition to go with each of the program abbreviations and names listed in the key at the end of the bell schedule?

6) The end of day information is much more difficult to understand, because there are so many differences by program. Does "ALL" in the KG split mean that the school has all day kindergarten? Does "Excel" in the Early Close column mean that the school does not have early close on Monday? Just wanted to make sure I was interpreting it correctly.

7) When you answer these questions, can the answers be added to the original document and to the excel spreadsheet (if you can share it with us)? That way the information will be with the data and everyone will have access to it.

A:
1) It is now posted in Word.

2) The asterisks and parentheses are for schools that are double bussed. Edison and Twain, for example, have many buses that go to both schools.

Edison 29* 3 / (1)
Twain (29*) 2 / 3

Means that 29 of the buses are shared; 3 are ED only; 2 are TW only. There is 1 SE bus at ED that drops this student as part of another run and there are 3 SE buses going into TW.

3) Yes. If the only one in a school was a SE bus, it would be /1.

4) No, it does not duplicate anything. Those are strictly SE runs and it's easier for SE to work with them if they're separated. They have a very real impact on SE's ability to cover afternoon runs and are a serious problem on Mondays or any other unusual day - e.g. a HS that closes early and conflicts with a HS run to which the driver is assigned, an early release day because of weather or pre Thanksgiving, etc.

5) I've worked up one and will ask that it be posted - Programs and Other Services - Definitions.

6) Yes

7) I'll ask that it be attached.

Question #6 Wednesday 10/10/2007

Q:
They would like to know the total number of buses, runs, drivers, students, and cost to deliver general education students within boundary. Out of boundary (non mandated), also special education. They also wanted to know if there is a spreadsheet of all runs in the county. Also, a map of the different area's (1,2,and 3).

A:
The details that he is looking for are impossible to ascertain without a couple of hundred hours of work by staff we don't have. Our runs are integrated so that most have in boundary, and out-of-boundary, mandated (including SE) and non-mandated program students. If we took the time to separate everything, we still couldn't cost it so it made any sense. You just can't separate these things out that way. What kind of a spreadsheet of all the runs? With what information?

Question #7 Wednesday 10/10/2007

Q:
The committee would like a spreadsheet that lists all the buses and counts on every run. They also asked about crossing over areas for servicing the students.

A:
A reference list of runs from one year ago, with the loads for each as counted by the drivers, will be placed on the web in the next couple of days. I don’t understand the second question. If the Tweak group could rephrase it, I might be able to provide an answer. See also the MPS study where this is discussed.

Question #8 Thursday 10/11/2007

Q:
Overall

1. How about a list of the routes that are longer than 45 minutes for high school and longer than 30 minutes for elementary school? If the computer cannot produce this list, we need new software.

Tweak needs to know how many kids are at the stops that are outside the parameter that we set (in our Tweak group) to determine whether these are even slightly feasible.

TJ routes

TJ is bussed separately (after the students get to their base school in the morning), so ask if we can have:

2. TJ routes with stop times and locations along the way for both a.m. and p.m.? MapNet is capable of generating this type of list. We saw some the other night for ALC. If number of expected students at the stops is available, fine. If not, just total load counts.

3. A scatterplot depicting where the TJ students live. If this is not available, does she at least have a total number of students that come from each of the base high schools?

Other non-mandated

I’m sure that the grandfathered students and admin. placements are integrated into other routes, but what other programs are routed separately to distinct locations? We’ll take whatever they have to get started.

Any other programs that are separate, non-mandated would help.

Load counts

I guess we can use the load counts from the email I sent the other day??

A:
1. There is a list in the documents entitled "Actual Load Counts - October 2006 - By Length and School Level". It is sorted by school level and then by length. It includes the route number, the length of the run in time, and the load counts, in descending length order.

2. Most TJ students have four routes:

• Home to base school - if they are outside their base school's walking boundary, they board the bus with their neighborhood students and ride to the base school, where they board the
  
• Base school shuttle to TJ - these runs have no other stops, just base school and TJ.
  
• TJ to depot - a bus full of students rides to, approximately, their base pyramid area depot, with stops only at TJ and depot.
• Depot bus meets several other buses that spread out and take students to their neighborhoods.
  

or

• Some buses that leave TJ in the afternoon drop some students on the way to the depot where the load is split among other buses.

or

• Some simply do an entire afternoon run without going to a depot.

When you say you want TJ routes with stop times and locations along the way for both a.m. and p.m., which part of which routes are you referring to? There are TJ students on most of the regular home to school runs in the morning. To pull out just the stops and times where we're picking up TJ students wouldn't be possible as they are free to ride from any stop.

3.

• Scatterplot of TJ students North - attached
  
• Scatterplot of TJ students South - attached
  

Other:

• Special Program Student Counts and Times - attached
  

Q:
3. Would it be possible to have Scatterplots for all High Schools and Middle Schools be made available on the TTF website?

The Scatterplots provided for TJ present a good picture of transportation challenges presented to FCPS. It would be good to see the same picture for other schools and learn about the impact that the different programs have on those schools.

A:
Middle School Population Scatterplots (pdf)
High & Secondary Population Scatterplots (pdf)

Q:
4. How Many Students Are "Eligible" to Ride in 2007: for All Schools and Each School?

A:
114,474

Q:
5. How do school administrators determine if new students are eligible for bus services