Submitted by Gerry Clare
Roving Reporter
August 24, 2015 1:00 a.m.
Roving reporter, Gerry Clare, asked the Executive Director of Administrative Services, Sharyl Wood, about the complaints on Facebook local social networks ( Amelia Island Fernandina Beach Network) regarding overcrowding on Nassau County school buses. She replied as follows:
At the beginning of each school year, there are often buses that have too may or too few students. Adjustments are made asap, and we get the bus loads made right as soon as we can. That being said, here are some facts:
1. No bus is allowed to leave a school with more students than the posted capacity of the bus. This is the number of seats x 3, because each seat’s capacity is 3 students.
3 to a seat seems crowded to most people because the students, especially at middle and high school level would be sitting very close together since they’re bigger. We do not like to have so many students on a bus that they are 3 to a seat and the Transportation Department tries to remedy this as well as possible.
2. If a bus is over capacity, another bus will be brought to the school or students will be redistributed onto another bus in order to get home. Again, no bus is allowed to travel over capacity.
3. No one is allowed to stand in the aisle or sit in the aisle. If a bus driver is allowing this, or if the bus driver is not contacting the bus shop because a bus is over capacity, that should be reported to the Transportation Department. (It’s my understanding, but this is hearsay, that a photo taken on a bus with a student “sitting in the aisle” was really a photo of a student who had been pushed out of a seat and landed in the aisle. In that case, it’s really maybe a disciplinary issue with the students. The student was not told to sit in the aisle.)
4. No, we have not a huge increase in our total school population, although we have had a small increase. However, the distribution of the population may be different. People move into new neighborhoods, out of others. So bus routes that were in place in the spring might have experienced an increased number of students if new families moved into developments on the routes. The Yulee area has had a number of new housing developments that have been built and are being populated recently, therefore, the bus routes serving those areas would naturally have more students.
Editor’s Note: Gerry began free lance writing for fun and is the author of a published book (available on Amazon and at Books Plus) about funny real estate experiences. Gerry is a longtime member of our local American Business Women’s Chapter, a volunteer cancer driver and church deacon who loves to read, travel and meet interesting people.