BISD school buses roll

As cash-strapped school districts across the country look for creative ways to save money, more and more are opting to cut back or eliminate school bus routes to make ends meet.

Not so at the Brownsville Independent School District, where the school bus transportation system is regarded as essential to the district’s educational mission.

"We’re all in this together," says transportation administrator Hector Chirinos, a former high school, middle school and elementary school principal. "We’re all in this to achieve a goal, and that goal is a better education for our students."

This year, BISD will spend $15.4 million of the $493.1 million budget on student transportation. That figure is up 7.7 percent from 2008-2009, when the district spent $14.3 million. Under a 1983 formula, Texas reimburses BISD roughly $2 million annually for transportation costs, budget administrator Tony Fuller said.

Nationally, about 23 percent of school districts surveyed by the American Association of School Administrators said they are reducing or eliminating school transportation for the coming school year as part of cost-cutting measures. That’s up from the 14 percent who considered such measures during the 2008-2009 year.

In Brownsville, slightly more than half or about 26,000 of BISD’s 48,000-plus students ride the bus to school, Chirinos said. But transportation to and from school only tells part of the story.

During the 2008-2009 school year, BISD buses made 7,925 extracurricular trips, taking students to everything from football games and volleyball matches to University Interscholastic League band and choir competitions, one-act play presentations, chess matches and other activities in Brownsville, around the Rio Grande Valley and upstate.

"We have five high schools," Chirinos said. "During football season if you have three of them playing out of town, that’s 10-12 buses per high school. Last year at band night, where all of the middle schools and their bands go to a football game at Sams Stadium at the same time, you had 35 buses over there on a Friday night."

Additionally, BISD provides tutorial buses, taking home students who stay for after-school tutorial sessions to improve their academic performance. Other buses take Career and Technical Education students to clinical sessions at area hospitals and other businesses.

After school on a Thursday in late August, five buses were at Sams Stadium for a Pace High School football game, while seven from Rivera were on the road to McAllen Memorial Stadium for varsity and junior varsity games. Eleven other buses were bound for Pharr-San Juan-Alamo, Edinburg, Harlingen and McAllen schools for various activities.

Chirinos said it’s still early in the year and the load has been relatively light.

Interim superintendent Brett Springston said school busses are part of having a successful school district.

"We’re looking at the whole child," he said. "Research shows that kids who participate in multiple activities are more successful in school. We want to continue with what’s worked. ... We’re success oriented. If our kids do well, they have opportunities. It helps the economy. It helps the town."

BISD almost exactly replicates national statistics in terms of students transported, said Robin Leeds, industry specialist for the National School Transportation Association.

Leeds said 50 million students attend classes nationally and about 26 million are transported by school buses.

Leeds pointed out that among students who go to school on buses, there are an average of 20 fatalities a year; but among the students who go some other way, the average is 800 fatalities a year. Among high school students, a teenager is 44 times more likely to arrive at school alive if he or she takes the bus than if they drive or ride with friends, Leeds said.

She also said cutting back on school bus routes increases traffic congestion, air pollution and fuel consumption through the addition of private vehicles making school trips.

"A 5-percent decrease in school bus service nationwide, which some people say has already occurred, is likely to result in an increase in fuel consumption of more than a million gallons per year — clearly a move that contradicts what our nation is trying to accomplish," Leeds said. "By preserving school bus service, the Brownsville district is protecting student lives, protecting the environment and reducing oil consumption. It should be congratulated."

At the beginning of the 2007-2008 school year, BISD added a global positioning monitoring system to its buses, giving the district the ability to refine routes, monitor the pickup and delivery of students and in general monitor the movement of its buses around the city.

The system resulted in a reduction in miles traveled and idling time. It also drastically reduced the number of calls from parents wanting to know where their child was or saying a bus had missed its stop.

Chirinos said he figures the GPS saves the district 100 gallons a day in fuel costs.