With the first day of school fast approaching, Midland Independent School District (MISD) has revealed the list of improvements it has made to its public school bus system, Your Basin reported.
“For the first couple of weeks, if there’s a student out there, we’ll pick them up, we won’t leave anyone out there standing, after a couple of weeks, drivers will start making their roster…we don’t want someone getting on there that’s not supposed to be there,” MISD Transportation Routing Coordinator Elisa Felix said.
The renovation project was led by Felix, who has been working for the district for more than 30 years. The expert was recently recognized as Operations Specialist of the Year by the Texas Association for Pupil Transportation.
“It’s a real honor, I was pleasantly surprised,” Felix said.
Felix and her staff have worked in collaboration to prepare the bus system for the new year, practicing routines, maintaining the buses and implementing technology onboard.
“Our drivers have to do a pre-trip and now they all have tablets instead of paper or a wand,” Felix said.
AC condition and wifi will be offered to ensure the comfort of students and grant them access to the internet to get ahead on schoolwork.
“They do have air conditioning, it’s a lot of work for our mechanics to keep them up, sometimes they go down and we have to put freon in them, but yes all our buses do have AC,” Felix said.
The fleet will now be run by new gasoline rigs instead of diesel ones. The locations of the buses can also be tracked by Route Finder, which notifies the district of the speed and exact location.
“Some of them are helping out with other routes that we don’t have drivers for, so we’ll have a bus that’s maybe doing one and a half routes, so they’re not only doing theirs but maybe part of another one,” Felix said. “We have some construction issues, trying to get students to the south of town, with bridges down and trying to figure out the best way for them to go, and not be so late trying to get back in, with the oil field traffic they’re late trying to get back.”
The district has opened eight to nine bus driver positions. Potential applicants are encouraged to apply on the district’s website.