Maine School Administrative District 1 spends about $2.2 million a year on transportation, more than $1,000 for each of the district’s approximately 1,750 students.
To Rob McCurry, father of two children in the district, that $2.2 million seems like more than enough to guarantee that every student is bused to school on-time. But he said that has not been the case for his 4-year-old son, who began attending afternoon preschool this year at Pine Street Elementary in Presque Isle.
“The bus has delivered him late to school essentially every day,” McCurry said on Tuesday Oct. 10. “It’s not fair to ask a 4-year-old to walk into the classroom late every day,” said McCurry, who lives on the Williams Road about six miles south of downtown Presque Isle.
At the beginning of the school year, his son was sometimes 30 minutes late to the 12 p.m. start of preschool, with the school bus he took making drop-offs and pick-ups in Presque Isle and Westfield, he said.
“My argument all along has been that we need to put in at least one more bus route,” said McCurry. “Maybe it would be worth looking at sending out a smaller bus for noon-time runs.”
McCurry has spoken with district officials, who say they’ve taken steps to address the problem, but are reluctant to add another bus route.
Clint Deschene, MSAD 1 assistant superintendent for business, said that the district has managed to narrow the gap for the route McCurry’s son is on — one of 10 buses running for the half-day kindergarten and pre-kindergarten students.
Starting Wednesday, Oct. 11, Deschene said, the problem could be solved, with an adjustment of the route for the Westfield noon runs and its ridership.
“We’re not happy it’s late. We want to fix that,” Deschene said.
McCurry said he’ll wait to see if the changes instituted Wednesday work.
Even with fuel costs being relatively low in recent years, busing is a major expense and logistical challenge for rural school districts like MSAD 1, and it’s a topic that school officials and the community need to discuss as part of the larger conversation about “right-sizing,” Deschene said.
“Busing without question is probably the most unique challenge in that it changes and has so many variables,” he said.
“Adding a bus with two students would be an easy solution, but not a cost-effective solution,” he said. “Money spent on busing is money we have to take away from the other things we do.”
MSAD 1 has budgeted about $2.2 million in transportation costs for the current school year — about 8 percent of the district’s total budget. That figure includes salaries for the 27 bus drivers and four mechanics, maintenance on the fleet of 38 buses, busing to and from school, and busing for extracurricular activities, including sports.
Deschene said that many rural school districts have the same kinds of challenges as MSAD 1, but that MSAD 1 in particular bears high costs as a larger rural district, serving students in five communities — Presque Isle, Mapleton, Chapman, Castle Hill and Westfield — across a large swath of central Aroostook County.
“It is more expensive for rural Maine to bus kids and state subsidy does not account for this,” he said.
In southern Maine, for instance, fuel can be 10 cents a gallon cheaper and the distances between home and school are closer, he said. “It’s not just a northern Maine issue, it’s a rural Maine issue.”
MSAD 1 also has a policy of door-to-door bus service, picking students up at their house, and offers a large amount of flexibility for parents in terms of where students can be picked up or dropped off.
“It’s a large region to cover and we allow you to switch easily,” Deschene said. “Some students are dropped off at one place on Friday and dropped off at another on other days.”
In contrast, some districts have a one-stop policy, letting parents choose only one location where their student can be picked up and dropped off, Deschene said.
Plus, he added, many other districts don’t have problems with noon-time bus runs because they operate all day kindergarten and in some places all day pre-kindergarten programs.
Last year, MSAD 1’s board of directors voted to adopt all day kindergarten in the coming years, although those plans have been paused following a series of rejected school budgets by local voters in the summer of 2016.
Looking ahead, Deschene said the district is aiming to make improvements to busing for next year, including the possibility of running noon-time drop offs and pickups on separate buses .
He added that officials want to hear suggestions from parents and taxpayers.
“We want to get community feedback.”
