The Rochester school board postponed voting last
night on a controversial $11.4-million contract between RTS and the district to
bus city students. Under the terms of the proposed deal (see below), the
district would pay more for transportation, but RTS would bus fewer students and
use fewer buses.
Superintendent Bolgen Vargas urged the board not to
delay the vote on the one-year deal and to accept the contract. A delay could
result in even higher costs, he said, because RTS has to have time to prepare
before school starts in the fall. And Vargas said that the district needs to
improve its negotiating process when it comes to agreements of this type.
But board members said that they need more
information before they vote.
Some board members did not understand what the extra
costs are for, and others said that they’re frustrated by what seems like
heavy-handed negotiations by RTS.
“I’m perplexed,” board member Jose Cruz said. A
visibly annoyed Cruz said that he’s frustrated by how the district got into this position —
that the actions of a few students are now going to cost the district nearly
$12 million that it doesn’t have budgeted. (Student violence at the downtown
transit center led RTS to end busing for city school students earlier this
year. The district and RTS have, however, worked out a deal for summer-school
busing.)
“The people here are going to have to make some tough
decisions,” he said. Cruz said that the school choice plan and transportation
would have to be thoroughly examined in the coming year. The zone lines will
have to be adhered to, he said, and students may have to be bused only to
schools within their zones.
Board member Malik Evans blasted the district’s
$65-million transportation budget for next year, calling it unsustainable.
Most families would receive the same service as
before under the proposed deal, but some would switch to yellow buses —
including all secondary students in charter schools — and some would use new
RTS express routes.
This article appears in Jun 17-23, 2015.
This is a much bigger issue for Rochester City School District students and their families than the standardized exams, teacher evaluations, the student code of conduct policy, suspensions, and other issues that get so much attention because there are political and financial implications for the movers and shakers involved. Nothing glamourous about sitting in a room for many, many hours and trying to assemble a puzzle that is clearly missing pieces. The unfortunate reality is that this mess needs to be cleaned up immediately no matter the cost. A day delay will result in additional September chaos. The Board was right to hammer the Superintendent at Thursdays meeting given the lateness, demands and confusion of his proposal but a decision can’t wait. Maybe they should asked their friends at the Community Foundation for the funds. No harm in a little loan between partners.
The list of major concerns (mostly new costs) that were presented and the aligned implications for instruction are staggering but there was no time to understand all of these because there was a bigger elephant in the room. The most important problem facing the district surfaced again. There are not enough high quality neighborhood schools. Busing costs would not be an issue if most kids were walking to school. Several board members brought this up. So what will happen? After this is patched, what is the long-term plan to improve the schools?
It seems to me that school buses are a privilege and not a right and if punk kids aren’t behaving, the privilege gets rescinded. I live in Minneapolis now and while the city schools here have a similar arrangement with the local public transit agency, problems are much less of an issue. Part of this is undoubtedly the fact that Mpls has rigid attendance boundaries, and part is that there are special routes serving the high schools. Moreover, since there isn’t one transit center where every route connects downtown, there’s not a centralized location for kids to fight at.
Other factors include the fact that there’s a Transit Police department whose only job is maintaining order on regional transit vehicles, and in downtown, there’s an innovative ambassador program where paid staff walk the streets of downtown, giving direction and picking up litter, and have the ability to radio police where needed. Rochester needs more eyes on the street and more security, as well as more jobs and hope for poor minorities. Because if these kids can’t behave on the RTS bus now, it’s only a matter of time before they’re plotting how to saw up the back of their prison cell up at Clinton.
The underlying problem that isn’t addressed is student behavior. This isn’t “about a few kids” poor behavior is sucking the life out of education in this city. Yes, it’s that serious.
The school board is crazy. There’s nothing to debate. Why are they delaying this?
Bill Carpenter shouldn’t be punishing the city school district by only offering one very expensive option.
Bolgen Vargas should resign. By now, he must be the only person in Rochester other than his staff who thinks he should stay.