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First Day of School Went ‘Pretty Well’, Escambia Superintendent Smith Says
August 12, 2021
The last students on school buses were arriving at home late Wednesday afternoon as Escambia Superintendent Tim Smith took a moment to look back at his first, first day of school in Escambia County.
“It went pretty well,” he told NorthEscambia.com as he looked back on a day that started with him visiting bus stops in District 3.
He said the number of students that enrolled were about on par with projections.
“We are right at what we were anticipating, just over 37,000,” Smith said, “and we’ll still get students coming in.”
Transporting those students to and from school was a major concern for the first day due to a bus driver shortage. District staff carefully planned the logistics of changing start and dismissal times at many schools in order to allow drivers to take on more routes. And, overall, the plan seemed to have worked.
“We did have some late buses, although on the first day that’s not highly unusual. Just getting up the routes and really making sure the kids get on the bus and managing that,” Smith said. “But in general, we did pretty well with our buses.”
In addition to the stack of forms that parents need to fill out for each student this week, the superintendent said there are a couple of important things not to overlook.
“Parents can make sure that they’ve had the conversation about whether their students should wear a mask or not. I saw quite a few masks today. So it’s just good for the student to know what their parents expectation is,” he said. The Escambia County School District does not have a mask mandate; masks are a parental option for the students.
“And let’s make sure make sure students are ready to go in a class and paying attention and doing homework and all those good things.”
He also noted that parents must opt in for health services under a new state law.
“We can’t even take a temperature if we don’t have the parent opting in for that; the parents must fill out that form authorizing (health services),” he stated.
“There were a lot of smiles today around campuses and a lot of lot of excitement, so it’s just great to see kids walking onto the campuses,” Smith said.
Pictured top: Escambia County School Superintendent Tim Smith (far left) started the first day of school visiting bus stops in District 3 with school board member Laura Edler (third from left). Photo for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Comments
12 Responses to “First Day of School Went ‘Pretty Well’, Escambia Superintendent Smith Says”
As a former bus driver, the buses running late starts at the Elementary Schools! If every parent would simply attach a note on their child’s shirt with the bus number, bus animal or bus color, stop location and a phone number to call in case of emergency this would alleviate most of the buses being late to each school. It is a domino effect.
As a parent, the worst thing you can do is take your child to school and have them ride the bus home on the first weeks of school. The child will have no clue as to what their bus driver even looks like. If they already know, this helps the child identify which bus to board in the afternoon. The teachers spend a lot of time trying to make sure the correct students are on the correct buses. HOWVER, students do get put on the wrong buses by accident. This holds ALL busses at the elementary schools. They then have to figure out what bus the child should be on. After all this time, the clock is ticking, and the bus drivers usually end up leaving the elementary school campuses at least 15 – 25 minutes late. Hence, the domino effect. As you have read, the shortage of drivers has changed school start times. So now, the drivers have two elementary schools to deal with. And the driver must sit and wait for the same process as the 1st elementary. Now your running approximately 40 minutes late to your high school, then at least 40 minutes to middle school. Middle schools are slow to load also. Some have no clue what bus number they are to get on.
This is a very LARGE TASK, it takes a lot of people working together to insure your child is on the correct bus. Just pin the information on your child. I CAN NOT express this easy little task enough! So, in reality it is not all of transportations fought.
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I hope this explains the process to the parents that are upset! Please have compassion and understanding with your Childs Bus Driver. This job is NOT a easy task! I did it for 13 years and every year is the same!
It could have been worse. 1st days are nuts. But overall it wasn’t as bad as last year. Considering that we are very short on Drivers and Aides I think the transportation did pretty well. The schools did ok. If the parents would avoid blocking the roads in the car rider lines things would have gone a bit better. Bit over all, it really wasn’t one of the worst 1st days I’ve seen.
Hang in there ladies and gents, it’s going to get better.
One thing please. Parents, if you’re kids need to be met at the bus stop, PLEASE be there! Yours isn’t the only kid one the bus. Other parents are waiting for thier kids too. When I have to sit 25 minutes, waiting for you to come get your kid, that means evwey other child on the bus is now 25 minutes late. And tuen I’m 25 minutes late to the next school. Thanks to all my bus parents for being such terrific people! Love you all and your kids too.
Yes the busses are usually late in the 1st week. But middle school kids getting home at 6pm!? That was excessive!! Unbelievable!! Get it together Escambia!!
As a school district employee, I can attest to the total lack of organization in the transportation department. The lack of drivers is due to poor pay, unruly students who ride the buses, Covid, etc. No one wants to ride on a bus with kids who curse, fight, and act like they are in charge. Parents need to teach their kids manners and tell them their bad actions endanger more lives than their own when the buses are on the road.
If your child needs bus transportation, you should be registered a week before the first day of school. If you aren’t, then don’t expect bus services for at least 48 hours after you register.
Complain to your school board representative until someone listens about the problems you have with this school district.
Since everyone else is lodging their complaints, I feel like I should formally add mine. My kids arrived home ON TIME!! I feel my wife and I got cheated out of some bonus quiet time.
Ralf is right folks, as much of a fail as this was on the schools, I don’t doubt there were plenty of parents who didn’t do anything except compound the issue by not having any consideration for efficiency on their part to make the whole.
Come on folks, stop doting, my kid gets up an hour early, MINIMUM. He gets ready for school, and then has free time until exactly TEN MINUTES until the bus shows up. He then promptly walks 200ft to the bus stop, which I can see where i’m currently sitting, and patiently waits. Upon the buses arrival, he looks both ways carefully before crossing the street (because apparently plus route planning doesn’t factor that in the equation, even when it’s more than reasonable considering the street layout and surrounding stops), finally boarding the bus without hesitation and swiftly moving to his assigned seat, where he plops his butt down and prays he doesn’t get lost like a piece of luggage at PIA.
How’s your 11 yr old kid doing?
Late buses BLAME the parents for not having their crumb snatchers ready for the bus .. watched the buss stop every freaking block and parents in their mini vans waited until bust stopped then
woke their kids up put on their back packs for them then led them to the bus … really !’ Better have them standing in line when the bus stops load them kids in about 10 seconds ……
I don’t see how they can try to pass this off as a “Great First Day”
Bus was 20 mins late in the morning, for Ransom…
Reasonable for first day, sure.
Kid stands at the bus loading docks for an hour before even getting on one and arriving home no less than 1.5 Hours after scheduled time… Still, understandable considering all the excuses the county has for a lack of coordinated transportation for the public school system.
I’ll buy all that.
What I don’t get is why any parent was left out of the loop or not notified or screened about the situation.
Both I and my partner made repeated calls to the school, only to get a busy signal or promptly screened.’
Upon calling ESCO, we were made aware that there was a massive driver shortage and all remaining bus operations were WAY BEHIND SCHEDULE.
We weren’t the only ones calling..
I want to meet the person/persons who get a paycheck from the county to make sure that parents are informed of any issues related to the custody or transport of their children by the school district for the duration of the school day.
Even if a machine does it, someone is paid to be behind that operation and they are terrible at their job.
So there’s my 1st world problem for the day. I think it’s more than reasonable for anyone to be anything but completely accepting of this grossly inadequate display of responsibility by whatever check-collecting slack-jawed desk jockey who’s too busy diddling themselves to take a phone call.
I guess nobody died, right?
According to northescambia.com Ransom now starts at 9:30.
The students in our area also didn’t get home until 6 that evening.
According to one parent it was because some students weren’t
preregistered to ride the buses. What ever the reason,I hope it gets
straightened out in the next few days but with the bus driver shortage I can imagine
the line for car riders will just increase.
Beulah Middle starts at 9:30. Bus stop pick up is 8:37. Told at orientation that no driver had been assigned to bus for our stop. Yesterday morning stood at bus stop for 1 hour. Called dispatch and was told another would be picking up students after dropping off high school kids. That would have put the kids being picked up and dropped off at school about 10:30 or so but school starts at 9:30. Also had to wait for a bus and didn’t get off bus until after 6. No call from anyone. Tried to call dispatch and school and didn’t get anyone. Scared to death. So I guess they consider that a great 1st day. The kids will be marked tardy due to buses which is not their fault.
For the Ransom Middle School students in my subdivision, school started at 9:10, yet these students were still at their bus stop at 9:30 waiting in the bus to arrive. Classes were dismissed at 4:15 and these same students didn’t arrived home until 6:02pm. IMHO, the bus issue still has a few problems to resolve.
I know it was the first day of school but I really would have liked if I could have talked to someone at the school when the buses were late. I kept calling trying different extensions. When no one answered the phone it made me worry something may have happened. My husband went to the school and he tried to get information on where our daughter but the teachers were outside being sort of rude, we know there are safety precautions but eventually she confirmed our daughter was on the bus. They just were sitting on the bus for awhile. My husband came home and then later our daughter arrived on the bus. My main concern was I couldn’t reach no one at the school. It’s her first day of school here since she was doing virtual last year so she’s not familiar with everything.