By Glenn Rolfe

DAGSBORO — A work in progress for several years, Indian River School District’s transportation proposal — geared to bring the district in line with others statewide — may swing into action for the 2022-23 year.

“When you compare this plan to other schools in Sussex County, you will see that we are in line with the rest of the county schools. This will put us in line with the state,” said Shawn Tidwell, the district’s transportation supervisor, at the Jan. 24 board of education meeting. “This allows even school times across the district — a six-hour, 45-minute school day, inclusive of lunch.”

The revised proposal is also designed to address traffic congestion, bus overcrowding and a shortage of buses and drivers.

“We all know that we have a serious bus driver shortage, and the additional routes requested are not feasible due to the lack of drivers to drive the current contracts. We need more flexibility to cover these uncovered routes,” said Mr. Tidwell. “Traffic congestion was a major problem at the beginning of the school year and has been since 2018. Buses are not meeting their dismissal times for second and third times … because of traffic congestion.”

Board president Rodney Layfield agreed, saying, “Transportation is a huge issue. We’ve been talking about it for the last three years. It is a monster that is uncontrollable at this time. We can’t put bus drivers in seats. We don’t have enough buses. And transportation woes are just growing.”

To alleviate some of that pressure, the plan calls for the district’s two high schools and three middle schools to operate with the same times for morning arrival (7-7:20), school start (7:30), dismissal (2:15) and after-bus parking lot departure (2:20-2:25).

Meanwhile, six of the district’s seven elementary schools would also follow uniform schedules (morning bus arrival, 8:25-8:45; school start, 8:50; dismissal, 3:35; and bus departure, 3:40-3:45).

The last elementary building, North Georgetown, has a unique schedule, which allows for triple runs to accommodate the number of students in its area. NGE’s bus arrival would be 7:50-8:10; it will have an 8:15 school start, a dismissal at 3 and bus departure 3:05-3:10.

The Southern Delaware School of the Arts has a schedule nearly identical to North Georgetown Elementary’s.

Howard T. Ennis School, the autism program at Georgetown Middle/Georgetown Elementary and the Early Learning Center’s morning and afternoon sessions would have their own schedules.

Schools that would experience the most drastic change are Phillip Showell and East Millsboro elementaries, with 80- and 85-minute later start times, respectively, than at present. Mr. Tidwell noted that parents with a student in either of these schools, in addition to a student in the middle school, would have to adjust to two separate start and end times, which could necessitate day care.

“With the two schools with the time changes, we know that day care may be a challenge,” said assistant superintendent Karen Blannard. “We are contacting the YMCA to see what they would be able to bring to before- and after-school (care) right there at the school site. They are interested in partnering with us. Their rates are very reasonable for that service.”

Mr. Tidwell said schedule alterations for East Millsboro and Phillip Showell are necessary.

“These things have to be in place when we have to look at the entire district to make it work and function. These are the things that we have to do. These are the times that we feel, … if we put them in place, are the greater good for the district.”

Board member Connie Pryor said she didn’t agree with the burden being placed on East Millsboro and Showell families.

“It think it creates a hardship for the parents at East Millsboro and Phillip Showell, to have to provide day care in the morning. It is going to end up costing them money,” she said. “I know that you say that we have to give them six months’ advance notice and all that. That doesn’t matter. It is still going to cost them money. I just think that it’s a hardship for them.”

Superintendent Dr. Jay Owens responded, “We have looked at our current transportation times associated with school start and end times. We have looked at this proposal to make some changes for some years now. We did have concerns at the beginning of the year with transportation challenges. We feel that the proposed plan addresses many of those challenges.”

The proposal has been shared with the district’s policy committee, principals and faculties.
Benefits of the plan include:

• The Southern Delaware School of the Arts will have the same instructional time, and only SDSA students will ride its buses.
• Busing for the Early Learning Center will allow for equal morning and afternoon instructional times.
• The autism program will have its own buses, resulting in its students having more time with their peers, as well as less crowded Howard T. Ennis buses.
• Increased bus capacity for Sussex Central High, Indian River High, Selbyville Middle and Millsboro Middle.
• Improved ability for all buses to arrive in time for dismissal and flexibility to fill uncovered routes without requiring buildings to dismiss certain buses early and/or late.
• East Millsboro will not need to have early-arrival buses in the morning and afternoon, so its students will no longer lose instructional time.

Traffic congestion

One key component is that the proposal will help alleviate morning and afternoon traffic congestion between East Millsboro/Millsboro Middle and Phillip Showell/Selbyville Middle.

“Traffic congestion was a major problem at the beginning of the school year. And it has been since 2018. Buses are not meeting their dismissal times for second- and third-start schools because of increased traffic congestion,” said Mr. Tidwell.

COVID-19 has factored in, particularly at East Millsboro, on Iron Branch Road in the vicinity of the Merck complex, said Millsboro Police Chief Brian Calloway.

“There has been a shortage of bus drivers. So parents were encouraged to drive their kids to school. Also, there was concerns with COVID, and parents not wanting their kids to be on buses,” he said. “Early on, what we found was there was a larger portion of parents that were actually transporting their kids themselves. You would have hundreds of cars at the school lined up. What happens is they stack up on the side of the road, and then eventually, it bleeds into other intersections.”

This became a tremendous problem early on, Chief Calloway said, and the police department worked with the district on solutions, including drone footage.

“Because when you are at the school, you don’t see it. You see what is front of you,” he said. “When you have these types of problems, you have to look at what is the big picture. What is the entire impact on other communities, other intersections, other businesses?”

East Millsboro was certainly the biggest challenge. “You have got a major intersection there that is also next to Merck, which is a business that has hundreds of employees. So when school is coming in, it is also the same time when employees are going to work,” the chief said. “We worked on developing ways to utilize their parking lots better, and also, they changed the certain times that buses can come in and out and also when parents can drop off. From just those slight adjustments, it eased those issues.”

Mr. Tidwell said next year’s changes should help with that bottleneck.

“We have such a traffic issue in that area that we have to make a change,” he said. “Otherwise, we are causing so many problems for the town with having these two schools at the same time. There were a lot of issues ... that were coming to light that, luckily, we came up with a somewhat better solution.”

Chief Calloway backed that plan.

“Moving forward to next year, I am hoping that we can have this plan … in place — staggering starting and drop-off times — so it’s not just one time where everybody comes at that time,” he said. “If it doesn’t work next year, we’ll work with the Indian River School District to find a new plan to make this better for all of us.”

What’s next?

The Jan. 24 presentation was for discussion. The proposal will be brought back at the board’s February meeting for possible action. If enacted, IRSD is to inform parents well in advance.

“We know that there are some concerns. We are working through them, through our various committees, that any additional time that is added to their instructional day for built-in weather makeups would have to push the dismissal times later,” said Mr. Tidwell. “We also must address the staff contractional times to make sure we are not violating the contract.”

He recognized Tyler Bryan, former IRSD transportation supervisor now in charge of school transportation at the state level, for laying the groundwork for this plan several years ago.

“I can’t take credit for this plan by myself,” said Mr. Tidwell. “He started this probably back in 2017, with looking at the vision of the growth that was coming from the area. A lot of these things he was working in place.”