MCCSC to vote on earlier school start times
MCCSC School Board meets this evening to vote on changing school times for all of the district in 2022-23. The proposal includes moving sll start times ahead 15 minutes, except for half of the elementary schools, which would start 30 later. This comes as a band-aid to the recent challenged the district has not been able to fix relating to student transportation.
The meeting is 6:00 PM, in the Board Room at the MCCSC Administration Center, 315 E. North Dr., Bloomington. Virtually, the meeting can be accessed here: www.mccsc.edu/boardmeeting.
School Board study data which led to this vote, was released in summary form:
Study Overview
School Bus Logistics was selected to provide a route efficiency study and in turn a school bell change impact analysis for the Monroe County Community School Corporation. Indiana and the nation are currently experiencing a school bus driver shortage. MCCSC, like other schools in the state, have been forced to find ways to handle this shortfall. School Bus Logistics provided two consultants to work both onsite and offsite to help support the district find ways to reduce the overall need of school bus drivers. This was first completed by evaluating bus routes before any recommendations were made to bell times. This allowed the district options to move forward to handle the driver shortage with the least number of impacts to families. In-depth interviews with both office staff and drivers were conducted to ensure all areas of efficiencies have been identified. School Bus Logistics also evaluated bus stop locations to reduce route times for efficiency purposes. Some bus stops in the intown areas did see a reduction of stops to help with the timing of buses for the new proposed bell times.
Project Objectives:
- Present a solution to the district that helps solve the school bus driver shortage
- Analyze bus routes for efficiencies
- Evaluate bus stops in certain areas of the district to help obtain timing of routes
- Maintain current student safety
- Increase bus capacity & utilization
Recommendations:
- Provide new bell times that will allow the district to operate fewer bus routes with less drivers.
- While a 60-minute expansion to current overall operating hours is needed/recommended, 45- minutes is the minimum we recommend for the district to create bus routes that can be fully staffed at current staffing levels.
- Remove approximately 30 routes from the transportation department.
- Stabilize bus routes for drivers.
- Mirror routes morning and afternoon with the same driver as optimally as possible.
- Increase wages for drivers because of a reduction in the number of buses needed. Also, will reduce the need to replace aging buses.
- Shifting of bell times will occur at a maximum of a 15-minute earlier (Secondary) or 30-minutes later (Some Elementary)
- Redesign the transportation building to increase safety and efficiency according to industry standards.
- Staff the transportation office at levels according to industry standards.
- Implement enhanced technology to improve communication and routing.
- Continued follow-up, evaluation, and training from the SBL team into the 2022-23 School Year.
Monroe Lake seeking seasonal employees
Apply now to work at Monroe Lake, as they are still looking for people to fill several seasonal park positions including office assistant, housekeeping, gate attendant, beach attendant, marina operator, security, and laborer. Join their team and help our visitors to make memories naturally! Submit your application online at careers.IN.gov. Type Monroe in the keyword search.
Arts Commission, Department of Education Partner to Offer Arts Integration Learning Opportunity
The Indiana Arts Commission (IAC) announced today that it is partnering with the Indiana Department of Education to offer two Arts Integration Learning Labs for K-12 educators and teaching artists. Arts integration is the work of skillfully combining arts learning with other learning goals. The Learning Labs are designed to empower teaching artists and classroom educators to partner together on meaningful arts integration experiences for their students.
This partnership follows the Partnering Arts, Communities, and Education (PACE) program, a research program conducted by the IAC from 2015 to 2021, which explored the impact of a long-term artist residency in elementary classrooms. Research findings from the PACE program demonstrated clear growth and a positive impact on the learning outcomes and engagement of young people involved in the program.
The Arts Integration Learning Labs will utilize the learnings from the PACE program to expand educators’ and artists’ tools in creative teaching strategies. The in-person, hands-on trainings will feature dual tracks for classroom educators and teaching artists to learn content specifically tailored to them, as well as opportunities for the two groups to come together to network with and learn from one another. Following the Learning Labs, educators will be eligible to apply for up to $3,000 in fellowship funding to put their learning into practice in their own classrooms.
The two Arts Integration Learning Lab full-day trainings will occur on Wednesday, July 13th in Muncie, IN and Friday, July 15th at the Thyen-Clark Cultural Center in Jasper, IN. Each training is free to attend with limited spots available. This opportunity is open to all Indiana classroom educators, though the design of the content will be especially beneficial for K-8 non-arts educators and teaching artists who have some previous experience in working with youth.
This Week in Hoosier History
1865 – The sidewheeler steamboat Sultana exploded and sank on the Mississippi River near Memphis. The boat, built to carry 376 passengers, was vastly overloaded with paroled Civil War prisoners of war. Many of the over 1200 who died were from Indiana. The 55 from Delaware County are honored by a monument at Beech Grove Cemetery in Muncie (pictured.)
For more local news . . .
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