Bus Drivers Cry Foul Over Keystone Depot Closure
Bus Drivers Cry Foul Over Keystone Depot Closure
The School District says student safety concerns led to the decision
Just before the holidays, the Clay County School district decided to close a small bus depot in Keystone Heights. Notice was sent to impacted employees advising the depot would be closed as of January 8th. The closure impacted mostly bus drivers, who are now required to drive to the main depot near Middleburg High School to pick up their buses.
The bus drivers and community members took to social media to cry foul. The complaint from the drivers was the added unpaid time they would need to drive from their homes in Keystone to the Middleburg depot and then back to Keystone in the buses. The drivers would then run this process in reverse in the afternoons.
The trek from Keystone to Middleburg can take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour, depending on traffic and the specific destinations. Two trips in the morning and two in the afternoon could add as much as four hours to the day of the bus drivers servicing the schools in Keystone.
As the school district is already suffering from a driver shortage, some people have wondered why the district would make a change that might prove unpopular with drivers. Per the School District, it all boils down to student safety:
“When a driver from the Keystone Heights compound is absent, we are very limited in our options in how to provide transportation for the affected students. Sometimes the dispatch office can “double up” or “double back” these routes. Many times, we are forced to cover routes with a Middleburg driver. Due to the proximity to Middleburg and the long route distances typical to this area, all current coverage options add a significant amount of time to how long students wait at their bus stops, which makes them late for school and missing instructional time. By planning all routes out of Middleburg, dispatch can quickly resolve coverage concerns and have substitute drivers leave at the appropriate time.
Student safety is our priority when making these decisions. With this adjustment, we should be able to decrease the amount of time students must stand at a bus stop, many times in the dark, waiting for a late bus.”
The frustration on the part of the bus drivers is certainly understandable, as is the school district perspective on ensuring students are safe and on time for school. In the future, if the driver shortage is resolved and staffing levels allow for easier replacement of absent drivers, maybe the Keystone Heights depot will be reopened. But for the foreseeable future, the decision has been made to centralize the dispatching of the buses. Clay News & Views will update this story with any future developments.