VISTA — The Vista Unified School District will resume two paused school bus routes with plans to add even more in the fall after halting general education routes to multiple schools for the past 18 months due to driver shortages.
Since the start of the 2022-23 school year, the district has offered one high school shuttle for Mission Vista; three middle school shuttles for Madison, Rancho Minerva and Roosevelt; and three elementary routes for Breeze Hill, Grapevine and Mission Meadows.
No routes currently serve Hanalei, Lake, Monta Vista, and T.H.E. Leadership Academy elementary schools.
On March 14, the district board of trustees agreed to resume two routes to Mission Vista High School from the Shadowridge and downtown areas for the remainder of the school year. District Chief Operating Officer Shawn Loescher said staff recommended this set of tandem routes after analyzing which students face the greatest barriers and distances to get to school.
“This is a positive step in the right direction,” Loescher said. “We may get as many as 85 students on this route.”
Trustees said they were glad to see routes resumed for the highest-need students, who currently face a lengthy drive to Oceanside to attend Mission Vista.
“I’m very happy that we can get these kids across town, finally,” said trustee Rosemary Smithfield.
The district is tentatively planning to resume even more routes for the start of the 2024-25 school year. This is possible due to hiring additional bus drivers — 38 of the district’s 51 authorized driver positions were filled as of the fall — and creative planning to make routes more efficient and combine them when possible, staff said.
These tentative route plans also account for the upcoming closure of Beaumont Elementary and Rancho Minerva Middle schools in June, displacing students to other schools.
Routes to Rancho Minerva will be retired, and routes will be added to the other two middle schools to absorb these students. This includes four routes to Madison Middle and five routes to Roosevelt.
Five routes will also serve Bobier Elementary. When the school is rebuilt, bus routes will be adjusted to transport Bobier students to Beaumont, which will be used as a swing site.
Vista Unified is also tentatively planning to add a route to Hanalei and one to Monte Vista. Loescher said two other routes are still being figured out.
“As we start to look forward to next year, this is a tentative listing, with more updates to come in the following months,” Loescher said.
Transportation assessment
Along with reviewing and approving the renewal of bus routes, the board of trustees reviewed further recommendations for improving service in a new transportation assessment study.
According to a Pupil Transportation Information (PTI) study, the district currently transports 580 general education students and 460 special education students.
There are currently 29 special education routes, many of which transport a minimal number of students and are sometimes used via vans or vehicles from the transportation network company HopSkipDrive.
Aside from driver shortages, many general education routes were also cut to allocate buses for mandated special education routes. PTI consultant Philip Medved encouraged the district to use more non-school bus vehicles to transport special education students and maintain buses for the general education population wherever possible.
“You have students to move, and you have suspended transportation for a lot of those students who may not be mandated, but very much need that bus,” Medved said.
To enhance efficiency, PTI suggested that the district consider moving the elementary school start time from 8 a.m. to 7:45 a.m. to give drivers more time to pick up other children. The study said the district could also implement a 15-minute morning drop-off and afternoon pick-up window for special education students, which would also prevent them from missing instructional time.
Medved also commended the district’s incentives to hire and retain drivers, including an 8-hour pay guarantee implemented in 2022. However, the study noted that there are not enough duties for drivers to do in the transportation department when they are not on their routes.
In addition, due to the shortage of drivers, other transportation department staff, such as administrators and dispatchers, often have to drive buses to ensure proper coverage, resulting in large amounts of overtime, the study found.
The board of trustees accepted the report on March 12 but did not take action to adopt any specific recommendations.
