The Stevens Point School Board. (City-Times photo)

By Patrick Lynn

The Stevens Point School Board now has an excellent chance to pull together as a single body and take immediate action over some major problems with the district’s transportation department. This board has a small window of opportunity to quell a growing mistrust of this school district.

First: the board needs to publicly apologize to families in this school district for serious busing snafus on the first day of school. The apology should be a public one and widespread. The City-Times has heard from parents whose children were dropped off at incorrect locations or dropped off more than an hour late, picked up late or not picked up at all. Some parents say the bus arrived long before its scheduled time, leaving parents scrambling to make other arrangements.

Some parents also said their children- some as young as 4 years old- were dropped off at an empty house instead of daycare. Even some in the Catholic school system, which also uses the district’s busing program, say they had similar problems when SPACS began school last week.

Second: the board must immediately schedule a special meeting to publicly demand answers from Transportation Director John Shepard. When postcards containing busing information did not go out to families two weeks ago as usual, district leaders knew there was a problem but made no efforts to notify parents. The media wasn’t notified; nor was any information relayed on the district’s website or social media pages until Saturday, August 30th- which was the middle of a holiday weekend and just three days before school began. This district employs masterful PR in most situations and has exercised excellent communication with area media regarding inclement weather and school cancellations, so they have the awareness of working with the media and there’s no excuse for not using that avenue to communicate with parents.

Third: the board needs to ensure this problem doesn’t fall solely into the category of “all things land of the shoulders of Superintendent Attila Weninger”. Weninger has released a letter to parents in the district accepting full responsibility for what he’s categorized as a problem with a “software conversion process”, but anyone who’s already tendered their resignation makes a convenient fall guy.
While Weninger may be the face of the district and ultimately does hold responsibility for all things under his purview, problems with the transportation department have been ongoing and Director Shepard has already escaped previous controversy with his employment intact.

Shepard came under fire earlier this year for referring to special needs students as “window lickers” in a memo to bus drivers about school bus maintenance. Shepard was disciplined for making the comment but district leaders refused to disclose how. While Shepard is not an elected official, his position is still one of public service and his actions- or lack thereof- demand swift explanation to the very families he is charged with serving.

Shepard’s department has two employees devoted specifically to coordinating bus route operations; employees who might also need to fork over an explanation.

But more than this we need to hold bus drivers accountable. Based on the information our staff received Tuesday, one might think many bus drivers in the district were new to the job while simultaneously having just moved to the city.

Don’t forget that several months ago, members of the bus driver union publicly asked the board to further investigate Shepard and complained of a poor working environment thanks to the director, with some pointing out the negative environment would lead to problems with department employees.

It was either a keen prediction or a warning that has now come to fruition.

Any lack of direct and immediate action by the school board would point to an institutional failure of this district to keep track of our students and be mindful of their safety. This is no time to stand on ceremony relegated by school board policies that govern speech; niceties have been long-forgotten by parents whose children were misplaced, missed a bus connection or were forgotten at a bus pickup location. It’s time for the board to launch a full investigation, and now.