http://annarborchronicle.com/2011/10/19/aaps-trustees-lament-states-hoops/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=aaps-trustees-lament-states-hoops it's like being there Tue, 16 Sep 2014 04:56:38 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.2 http://annarborchronicle.com/2011/10/19/aaps-trustees-lament-states-hoops/comment-page-1/#comment-75958 schoolsmuse Sat, 22 Oct 2011 17:44:29 +0000 http://annarborchronicle.com/?p=74250#comment-75958 In case it’s not obvious–that whole comment above refers to the busing discussions.

]]> http://annarborchronicle.com/2011/10/19/aaps-trustees-lament-states-hoops/comment-page-1/#comment-75957 schoolsmuse Sat, 22 Oct 2011 17:43:46 +0000 http://annarborchronicle.com/?p=74250#comment-75957 Thanks very much for this summary. I found all of it most interesting, and I’m looking forward to the evaluation report. Brian Marcel says that there were almost no complaints last year? I don’t know if it’s true in Ann Arbor, but it certainly wasn’t true in Ypsilanti, where there were tons of complaints, and the school board ended up spending precious extra dollars on a different outside bus company (Trinity). A 40% turnover rate? I think that’s astounding, and rather than pointing to “we have the freight that talks back” (drivers *do* know what they are getting into), maybe it’s more of an issue that the WISD didn’t hire some of Ann Arbor and Ypsi’s most experienced school bus drivers, and maybe they underestimated the “prevailing wage.” The argument was, back when the school board switched to the WISD, that Ann Arbor was paying “too much” for bus drivers, because the prevailing wage was actually much lower. What if that wasn’t, actually, the case? Or maybe it’s about terms and conditions? I don’t know, but I do know that evaluation then becomes even more important.
The Ann Arbor schools are supposed to provide management and oversight of the WIDS busing, and if they are not getting the evaluation metrics that they want (which should, probably, be provided at least quarterly), then it’s going to be hard to manage that contract very well. If at all.

]]> http://annarborchronicle.com/2011/10/19/aaps-trustees-lament-states-hoops/comment-page-1/#comment-75709 Edward Vielmetti Fri, 21 Oct 2011 04:52:51 +0000 http://annarborchronicle.com/?p=74250#comment-75709 I’d like to see some WISD and AAPS officials at AATA board meetings, or vice versa, to talk about coordination of schedules, fare structures, or other ways to get kids to school when possible via public transportation. I say that as a parent of a 6th grader who rides the city bus.

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