Croydon
Vogt said he has been looking to find a driver since he was told in late August that the agreement with Newport would terminate on Sept. 30, but he has been unsuccessful thus far.
The problem, he said, is a lack of drivers, not only for Croydon, but for other districts as well.
“They are short three drivers,” Vogt said about Newport.
Croydon, which formed its own SAU on July 1 after voting to split from Newport, has used a bus driver from the Newport district to to transport about 25 students to the Croydon Village School, the Newport Montessori School and the public schools in Newport since around the middle of last year when the driver for Croydon had to leave for health reasons, according to Croydon School Board Chairwoman Angi Beaulieu.
Vogt, who was hired July 1 on a part-time basis for $75 an hour, said the “memorandum of understanding,” or MOU, with Newport for a bus driver was presented to the Newport School Board in late August.
According to minutes from the Aug. 25 Newport School Board meeting, the board voted, 5-0, on a recommendation from Business Administrator Terry Wiggin to amend the MOU “to include the end date of Sept. 30, 2016, with no automatic renewal but with the option for renewal.”
Wiggin told the board that providing transportation for Croydon “would be difficult to support given Newport’s athletic obligations this fall and would be impossible to support given the same in the spring.”
Vogt signed the MOU on Aug. 29. Beaulieu said the Croydon board learned of Newport’s vote at its Sept. 14 meeting.
“I was blindsided at the last meeting,” Beaulieu said on Wednesday.
“What I wish happened is that Newport would have asked us to come to the Newport School Board meeting (on Aug. 25) to see if we could come up with a solution,” she said.
Beaulieu said she had hoped the problem would be resolved before it got to the crisis point.
“I was hoping we could find someone in this (two-week) window,” Beaulieu said.
She and Vogt said the district has put notices out to area bus companies and they are doing what they can to help.
“The people are just not out there to do it,” Vogt said. At an average wage of $18 an hour, money is not the issue, he said.
Vogt said he has contacted a couple of certified drivers, as well as the White River Junction-based Butler’s Bus Service. He said a new driver has been hired for Croydon, but the driver is in his or her second week of an expected six to eight weeks of training.
In the notice sent to parents on Tuesday, Vogt explained the situation, apologized and suggested parents carpool students.
Tonya McMurray, a parent of a fourth-grader in Croydon and a sixth-grader who attends school in Newport, said the short notice is upsetting.
“I had no idea until I got this letter,” McMurray said by phone on Wednesday.
McMurray said transporting the children to school in the morning is not a problem, but her fourth-grade son takes the bus to day care in the afternoon.
“If someone said something in the beginning of September, parents could maybe have made arrangements. It would have given people more flexibility,” she said.
McMurray said her day care provider wanted to pick students up at the school, but that would require another qualified employee to remain at the day care center with other children, and it takes time to for another employee to obtain that certification.
Newport Superintendent Cindy Gallagher, who confirmed that they would extend the service for Croydon to Oct. 7, said Wednesday the shortage of bus drivers has been a conversation since the withdrawal from the SAU, which was approved by voters in March.
“Croydon has been looking for a driver for some time,” Gallagher said. “We are down two drivers and with Croydon it is three, so we don’t have enough for our athletic teams.”
Lori Kincaid, public information officer at the state Department of Education, said in-house legal counsel learned of the situation on Wednesday and contacted Vogt, advising him of the state law.
Under state law, school districts are required to provide bus transportation to and from school for any student in grades one through eight who lives more than 2 miles from the school.
Kincaid said the department will wait to see what happens after the one-week extension.
“I know it is state law and I am trying to comply, but when we don’t have the people, I don’t know what we are supposed to do,” Vogt said.
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.
