GISD alters bus route

GALVESTON — The Galveston Independent School District on Friday changed the way one of its new school year bus routes will work after a West End parent complained that fifth-graders would be passengers along with high school students.

Sandra Tetley, a critic of the district who formed the Galveston Alliance of Neighborhood Schools, sent an e-mail Thursday to the members of the district’s board of trustees saying the schedule was “absolutely unacceptable” after reading it on Austin Middle School’s page of the school district website.

The Campeche Cove resident, who has two children attending district schools, was upset that 10-year-olds would be traveling in the same bus as students in their late teens on Route 111.

“This is the most ridiculous, shortsighted and dangerous thing you all have allowed to happen,” she wrote.

“For the safety of the students, this schedule needs to be changed immediately.”

The message drew an immediate response from the district.

Its transportation director, Joe Alvarez, moved the fifth-graders to a bus route that serves only middle school campuses.

The problem arose because, during the school year that starts today, Austin Middle School will accommodate fifth- through eighth-grade students, whereas most middle schools’ youngest students are sixth-graders.

For all bus routes but 111, that was not difficult because buses will make separate runs for elementary, middle and high school students.

However, Route 111 buses will make only one run, to the district’s middle and high schools, because of the length of their journey from the far West End.

So Alvarez moved the West End fifth-graders to the second run of Route 103, which serves the Austin campus.

“It’s impractical for the far West End bus to keep returning to pick up students in each age group because it would take hours,” Ann Dixon, the district’s interim superintendent, said. “We would never put our children in a dangerous situation. In fact, some parents want their children to ride the same bus as their older brothers and sisters as a safety consideration.”

Dixon said a major consideration in determining the way bus routes will operate during the new school year is the district’s schools-of-choice program, which allows families to choose the campus their children attend.

“Because of that, we will have about 2,000 children a day to transport to and from school,” she said. “That’s not easy and, especially with our tightened budgets, we must remember that it’s a bus service. It’s not a taxi service.”