With the new school year approaching, students and parents are gathering supplies, shopping for new clothes and preparing for their first day back. One of the many decisions to be made about school, is transportation. The Clinton School District currently uses a third party service, Apple Bus, for their transportation. CSD has 16 total bus routes, five of which run throughout the country roads surrounding Clinton. During the regular school year, the first bus leaves the lot at 5:45am for pick ups before school and returns around 4:45pm from after school drop offs. Between the regular school bussing, planned activities and trips, and non-district maintenance the busses run about 229,000 miles annually. The bus barn in Clinton does have one full-time mechanic on staff, but in addition to the buses used by CSD, the local lot also performs maintenance on buses from surrounding districts such as: Appleton City, Hudson, Leeton, Montrose, Osceola, and Windsor. Pam Wilson, local Lot Supervisor and Director of Transportation, said in addition to their mechanic, they are “looking to add a full time tech to the lot” to help with some of the workload. Additionally, the lot currently has 11 full time drivers and five “call-in subs”. However, the ideal amount of full time drivers they would like to keep on staff is 17. There are currently some people working on obtaining their license, but not all of them will be fully licensed by the start of school.
Apple Bus was recently bought out by First Student, and as such there will be some changes implemented throughout the district. The changes will be gradual, but should all be complete as of January 1st, 2023. First Student is focused on incorporating new technology. One such measure being implemented is to equip each bus and van with GPS systems. Although, it may not be ready to roll out by the first day of school, Director of Technology, Skip Cooley is working with Apple Bus/First Student to construct a new process called “School Pass”. Students will scan their school ID cards when getting on and off the bus. Upon doing so, their picture, name, and information should appear on the screen. This will verify to the driver (or substitute) that the child is on the correct bus. Once the process is in place, parents will be able to create an account to monitor when and where their child gets on and off the bus. Cooley said “It’s important parents make sure they have a valid email address on file with the school, so when the time comes they will receive an email with instructions for how to set up their School Pass account”. This will allow parents to monitor where their child’s bus is on the routes, and make notes about which adults it is okay to let littles off with. Clinton School District does require any student pre-K through first grade to have an adult at the bus stop in order to let the students off. If necessary, parents can write a written note allowing their pre-K through first grade students to get off the bus with an older sibling in lieu of an adult, but the sibling must be in third grade or higher. Another advantage to the School Pass will be making sure students are riding the correct bus. If a student scans their ID card on the wrong bus or on a day when they are not supposed to be riding the bus home, it will alert the bus driver that that student should not be on that bus. Once implemented, the School Pass should prove to be a very useful tool for parents of bus riders.
For any bussing related questions, you can contact Apple Bus at 660-885-2644.
