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From YouTube: Transportation Community Update
Description
Navigate to the transportation page from our B2S website to stay connected: asdk12.org/backtoschool
A
Okay,
all
right,
thank
you,
everyone
for
joining
us
for
this
community
update.
My
name
is
mj
tim,
I'm,
the
senior
director
of
community
relations
and
communications
for
the
anchorage
school
district.
Today,
the
district
administration
is
available
to
provide
the
latest
information
to
families
as
we
prepare
to
start
the
school
year
with
a
bus
driver,
staffing,
shortage,
you'll
hear
from
superintendent,
dr
jared
bryant,
deputy
superintendent,
dr
mark
stock,
and
then
we
will
field
a
few
questions
from
our
media.
Friends
with
that,
I
will
now
turn
it
over
to
our
superintendent.
Dr
jared
bryant.
B
B
B
Please
understand
that,
as
soon
as
I
was
informed
of
the
potential
severity,
I
wanted
you
to
know
what
I
knew.
It's
vital
that
you
have
as
much
information
as
we
can
deliver
it's.
Why
we're
here
today,
even
though
we
continue
to
make
progress
retaining
more
and
hiring
new
bus
drivers,
the
situation
isn't
improving
fast
enough.
B
B
C
C
Our
current
staffing
levels
indicate
that
we'll
only
be
able
to
serve
about
seven
thousand
students
at
any
one
time.
We
understand
how
difficult
this
will
be.
Most
families
have
come
to
depend
on
safe
and
consistent
transportation
from
their
school
bus
drivers
and
we've
been
happy
and
pleased
to
be
able
to
deliver
that.
However,
how
did?
How
did
we
get
here?
Well,
currently
we're
about
71
drivers
short.
C
The
good
news
is,
it
was
76
drivers
short.
Last
week,
we've
implemented
some
aggressive,
recruiting
strategies
and
retention
strategies.
We
believe
those
are
showing
some
success.
We
have
about
14
new
drivers
in
training
as
we
speak,
and
we
believe
that
we'll
be
chipping
away
at
this
issue
as
we
go.
Nevertheless,
recruitment
takes
time.
C
This
is
a
state
national
problem.
I
was
looking
yesterday
and
I
noticed
a
survey
of
national
transportation
directors
nationwide,
and
it
said
that
90
of
them
indicated
across
our
country.
They
have
a
bus
driver
shortage
and
30
percent
of
those
said
it
was
severe,
I
don't
know
what's
below
severe,
but
I
feel
like
as
asd
we're
right
in
that
range
of
of
some
critical
issues
we
have
to
solve.
C
This
is
going
to
impact
all
general
education
students
who
are
eligible
for
transportation.
Our
students
who
have
special
education,
bus
routing
due
to
their
individual
education
plan,
their
iep
will
not
be
affected.
Those
legal
requirements
for
busing
students
with
needs
will
continue
as
they
have
in
the
past.
However,
this
does
impact
all
the
general
education
students
who
are
eligible.
Of
course
it
doesn't
affect
those
who
walk.
There
is
a
1.5
mile
radius
for
those
who
live
within
a
walking
region.
C
Of
course,
they
were
not
getting
transportation
before
so
it
doesn't
affect
those,
but
it
does
affect
all
the
others.
All
our
other
eligible
students
will
be
on
a
rotating
bus
schedule,
and
so
what
can
parents
do?
Well?
One
thing
we
can
do
is
continue
to
pull
together.
As
a
community
we
can
recruit,
recruit,
recruit
is
the
best
we
can
do
right
now.
Parents
can
carpool
and
many
families
were
bringing
their
kids
to
school
already.
We
would
recommend
they
continue
to
try
to
help
their
friends
and
neighbors
out
for
a
couple
of
reasons.
C
C
If
you
can
imagine
four
times
as
many
parents
trying
to
individually
drop
their
children
off,
that
will
cause
delays
and
things,
so
our
our
principals
will
have
to
be
working
on
various
plans
for
efficiencies
of
drop
off
and
pick
up
and
supervision
before
school
after
school.
Whatever
we
have
to
do
to
try
to
help
our
families,
we
will
do
our
best.
This
is
a
true
call
to
the
community
for
support.
C
It
takes
all
of
us.
We've
just
come
out
of
the
cove
pandemic.
We've
had
a
lot
of
difficulties
with
schooling
across
our
country,
and
the
last
thing
our
students
need
now
is
another
issue
to
deal
with,
so
we
will
do
our
best
to
do
everything
we
can
and
at
this
time
I
would
like
to
turn
this
over
to
our
acting
chief
operation
officer,
rob
holland,
who
will
talk
about
how
the
plan
will
work.
D
D
D
E
C
We
look,
we
were
able
to
maintain
busing
in
in
several,
if
not
many,
of
our
schools,
where
there's
higher
poverty
levels,
but
this
year
the
shortage
is
so
severe
that
we
we
simply
can't
do
that.
We've
had
to
spread
it
out
across.
We
looked
at
a
couple
other
things
we
looked
at
just
what
I
call
selected
schools.
We
could
have
just
picked
the
schools
that
we
thought
would
need
it
and
just
provide
busing
there,
but
the
problem
with
that
is,
you
would
only
be
serving
about
20
schools.
C
You'd
have
40,
plus
schools
that
got
no
transportation
at
all.
Our
intent
at
this
point
was
to
try
to
spread
it
around
to
help
everyone
somewhat.
It
is
not
a
good
solution.
It
is
the
best
of
the
bad
solutions.
We
looked
at
double
drop
busing,
which
would
be
run
around
drop
them
off.
Go
do
another
route,
drop
them
off.
The
delays
that
it
creates
inside
the
school
can
be
overcome,
but
that's
really
not
the
solution.
The
solution
is
to
recruit
and
retire
get
drivers
and
to
be
as
efficient
as
we
can
in
our
routing.
C
C
Well,
we
can't
give
a
specific
number
we're
we're
planning
it
out
for
the
year
just
to
be
safe.
If,
if
worse
come
to
worse-
and
this
is
the
best-
we
can
do-
we're
planning
that
out.
However,
that
is
not
our
expectation,
so
we
were
planning
through
the
first
nine
weeks,
in
particular
that's
our
target
and
in
the
during
that
first
nine
weeks
of
the
quarter
of
the
year,
we
will
be
coming
up
with
other
solutions
as
quickly
as
we
can.
F
D
However,
the
the
school
district
has
a
three
week:
training
program
which
we
provide
for
free
to
new
drivers.
In
fact,
I
believe
we're
the
only
entity
in
anchorage
that
does
that
not
only
that,
but
for
new
driver
recruits,
we
pay
salary
while
they
take
that
training
and
so
that
that
requirement.
I
believe
this
is
the
fastest
course
and
the
easiest
course
for
people
to
get
that
essential
requirement.
D
E
C
So
the
question
is
why
the
delay
on
saturday,
why
saturday,
at
five
a
couple
different
reasons,
the
first
one
is
it
takes
about
four
days
for
our
people
to
completely
go
through
and
build
all
the
routing
so
they're
working
on
that
now
and
then
it's
going
to
take
a
day
or
two
for
our
I.t
department
and
programmers
computer
to
pull
all
that
data
and
to
get
it
plugged
in
individually
into
every
single
child's
parent
connect
portal.
So
a
parent
can
go
in
friday
at
five
o'clock.
They
should
be
able
to
go
in
and
see.
C
E
C
Are
you
speaking
of
student
absenteeism
yeah,
so
with
student
absenteeism,
it's
really
hard
to
figure
out
factors
because
with
the
covid
and
the
online
and
the
back
and
forth
and
various
illness
issues
that
were
sweeping
through
the
spring
that
weren't
even
covered
related.
It's
hard
for
us
to
know
exactly.
But
yes,
attendance
has
been
down,
but
it's
hard
to
say
that
we
could
say
was
because
of
the
rotating
bus
schedules
from
last
year.
So
we
don't
know.
A
D
Yes,
sir
yeah,
thank
you
for
the
question
and
helping
us
communicate
that
out
today.
So
we
have
a
retention
incentive
and
a
hiring
incentive
that
is
up
to
twenty
five
hundred
dollars.
Bonus
pay
for
the
first
semester,
paid
monthly
up
to
five
hundred
dollars
per
month.
Of
course,
it
does
depend
on
actually
working
the
day,
so
there's
a
pro
rate,
but
but
yeah
2500
bonus
incentive
applies
to
existing
and
new
driver
recruits.
D
D
C
Well,
it's
hard
to
say
I
can
tell
you
that
nationally,
the
average
age
of
bus
drivers
has
been
climbing.
I've
been
reading
that
so
I'm
assuming
there's
some
of
that
as
well,
but
we
also
have
a
lot
of
competition
for
drivers
here
in
the
anchorage
bowl
as
you're
all
aware,
tourism
is
now
on
the
increase.
Now
that
covet
is
faded.
C
So
there
are
other
com,
lots
of
folks
who
need
drivers
of
all
kinds
and
everything
from
amazon
to
dropping
off
delivery
of
packages
all
over
the
cdl
is
a
demanding
a
very
valuable
license
right
now
and
our
call
out
to
the
community
would
be
to
to
look
and
see
if
there's
anything
that
anyone
could
do
to
help
support
that,
and
I'm
going
to
put
a
plea
in
for
even
part-time
drivers.
There
may
be
people
who
could
do
one
shift
in
the
morning
and
drop
an
early
route
of
high
school
students,
but
then
go
to
work.
C
If
there
are.
We
don't
do
a
lot
of
that
in
the
past,
but
we're
open
to
everything.
If
there
are
drivers
out
there
who
could
who
would
do
a
different
shift
and
just
run
one
of
those
tiered
routes,
they
would
help
us
immensely.
So
there's
a
lot
of
different
things.
The
community
could
do
to
support
us
and
that's
just.
E
D
Yeah,
thank
you
for
the
question.
Lauren
there
is
and-
and
it's
been
in
the
past
as
well
high
school
students
can
ride
those
buses,
we're
not
attempting
to
extend
that
to
middle
or
elementary
school
riders
due
to
safety,
but
that
agreement
you
speak
of
is
still
in
effect
for
high
school
students.
That's
correct,
yes,
yeah,
yeah
and
a
a
school
id,
and
for
this
for
this
particular
time
they
could
even
show
last
year's
id
if
they
don't
have
their
newly
issued
id
at
this
time.
A
C
Was
just
going
to
add
to
a
couple
of
things
one
of
them
is:
is
our
our
high
schools
will
be
suspending
the
parking
fees
for
our
drivers?
We
do
have
a
lot
of
high
school
drivers
that
literally
do
bring
their
their
own
siblings
to
school
and
drop
them
off,
go
to
school
or
or
do
the
driving
for
the
family.
C
C
Last
year
we
used
for
families
in
financial
need
who
had
to
drive.
We
used
gas
cards
that
we
could
help
support
families
in
need
with,
if,
if
we
could
help
them
that
way,
we
are
going
to
expand
that
program
and
also
provide
those.
The
process
will
flow
through
the
principles
at
the
local
school
in
need
that
more
detail
will
come
later.
But
those
are
us
two
other
things
that
we're
doing
to
try
to
support
our
families.
C
Well,
last
year
we
used
50
gas
cars,
we'll
probably
use
a
lower
dollar
amount
this
year,
so
that
more
folks
can
participate.
What
we
found
is
that
they
were
people
were
very
conscientious
about
them.
I
mean
we
thought
there'd
be
a
lot
higher
usage,
but
families
that
needed
them
came
and
got
them
and
those
that
didn't
didn't,
and
so
we
we
literally
only
used
about
half
of
those
that
we
had
made
available
last
year.
So
we'll
have
those
for
the
start
of
school,
but
we'll
probably
be
working
through
the
details
on
that.