This year, we're suspending transportation registration changes on August 27 (not 24th as originally intended), and resuming routing changes on September 10. I wrote about this last week, and explained why were doing such an insane and unnatural thing. I really believe it is going to IMPROVE our customer service by taking that short break from routing changes.
Behind-the-scenes we do other things to help things flow smoothly. Keeping ahead of all the special things we do to make the first week of school successful is tricky - especially when we want to keep doing the things that worked well and stop doing the things that were a waste of time or some other resource. One of our favorite programs we use is a perpetual electronic calendar. We enter the annual jobs we want to keep doing and save links to various document files we need to complete those jobs. The calendar reminds us each year when we need to do all those things. Still, in the final count-down, we resort to the old fashion paper-and-pencil daily count-down lists to keep us on task.
For the next nine days, we will certainly be busy perfecting routes, training drivers and teaching them their routes, and all the usual daily business required to run our taxis, operate our storage facility, manage our car rental business, and perform maintenance for our customers and fleet.
As I look at this year's final count-down sheets, I am pleased at what we have already accomplished this year and the time we have left to complete the work before the first day of school. We are well on our way to what promises to be one of the best starts ever.
I am greatly satisfied by the quality of our staff. The willingness of each person to "get the job done" is a blessing and boon to our company. And I am greatly thankful that as they do their jobs and complete their pieces of our company puzzle, I hear the recurring, happy laughter echoing through the hallways.
This is a happy, happy place.
Safe driving!
Kari
2 comments:
So, I have been on vacation since Aug 18. I come home to a pile of mail that I go through yesterday, and I see that you wasted postage to mail me a school bus letter that gives me absolutely no information at all for my 10th grader. So now because I was on vacation I must wait until Sept 10 to find out if my kid can ride a bus??? Not happy about this.
The letters we sent home contain valuable information about transportation. In some cases it showed parents we had daycare information wrong. In other cases, it showed that students weren't scheduled to ride a bus, prompting them to contact us for corrections. The letters also explained our new high school transportation practice.
As I explained in the emails today, we sent the information home with report cards in the spring, again in August, and published a district-wide phone call that reached all families with current contact information on file.
It's a challenge for everyone when practices change! None of our staff enjoys having to tell people we can't do something, and we want to make sure students get safely to school every day.
We have tried for several years to get high school information updated by sending home an information sheet at the end of the school year, but had very little success collecting the data we need to make good decisions about routing.
This year we implemented a new practice of removing tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade students from the routes with the clear intention of adding back any student who asked (or whose parents asked) to be reinstated. There is absolutely no doubt that your daughter will be able to ride the bus when we process your reinstatement request.
Again, I apologize for your inconvenience and that we weren't able to better communicate the change. As you can see by a brief survey of our website and blog, there is a valuable resource in place for transportation information here. Check back anytime to see what's happening in Monticello transportation.
Thanks and Safe Driving!
Kari
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