The Bus Owner/Operators: Transporting Newtown’s Youth

By Eliza Hallabeck

Only two other towns in Connecticut have a similar system for transporting youth to school, and even compared to those communities Newtown’s owner/operator system is distinct.

“We are the most unique,” said Carey Schierloh, an owner/operator in town.

Newtown’s bus system is comprises 68 buses between the 35 owner/operators and drivers for MTM Transportation Inc, which provides specialized transportation in town.

Michelle Voight, owner of MTM Transportation Inc, said both MTM drivers and the owner/operators in town are loyal and dependent.

“We work together,” she said.

With roughly 300 miles of roads in Newtown, the owner/operators all drive three routes in the morning and three routes in the afternoon.

Ms Voight explained that the owners/operators in town act “separate but integrated” with MTM.

Ms Schierloh said all the owner/operators are residents of Newtown. Some grew up in Newtown, went through the Newtown school system, and now have children of their own going through the school system.

“Some of the owner/operators own businesses in town,” she said.

Owner/operator Phil Carroll said he has a large family, and most of his nieces and nephews were on someone else’s bus at one point.

Newtown’s tradition with using individual owner/operators began in 1934, according to town historian Dan Cruson’s Educating Newtown’s Children: A History of Its Schools, when the Board of Education reacted to the rising need for transportation for the district’s students.

Until the school board’s decision to open bids for transporting the town’s students, most children had been walking to school. One, mentioned in Mr Cruson’s publication, walked four miles from his home in Taunton to what was then Hawley High School.

The winners of the school board’s transportation bidding process, according to the publication, were “…Albert Rasmussen, Jacob Nezvesky, Jesse C. Lewis, and Arthur Page (who became the first of Newtown’s school bus drivers hired at a rate of $8 to $10 per day). This tradition of contracting with private drivers, rather than a single bus company, has continued to the present time.”

According to the proposed school district budget for the 2009-2010 school year, school bus transportation services are now provided by a system of 35 independent contractors and MTM Transportation Inc, a local fleet operator, along with other private vendors routed and dispatched by the transportation director and his assistants at the Board of Education’s offices.

“Newtown Public Schools makes every effort to run an efficient, effective, and cooperative transportation operation and, taking community values into consideration, functions under an owner-operator system that is viewed locally as one of the better types of transportation arrangements,” the budget reads.

Also according to the proposed budget, the cost of transportation in Newtown per student in regular education is $583, according to the 2007-2008 school year data. Compared to other districts in Newtown’s District Reference Group with the state, the group’s average cost for students in regular education is $496; the highest transportation cost per student is $747 in Madison and the lowest is $337 in New Fairfield.

Compared to other towns in Fairfield County, the highest cost per student for transportation is $778 in Bridgeport and the lowest cost is $402 in Monroe. The reasons, including enrollment, behind the costs for transportation for each student varies between districts.

In total, the expected amount the district plans to spend on transportation for the 2009-2010 school year is $4,861,456, which includes the cost of repairs, fuel, supplies, training, and salaries. Enrollment in the school district for the 2009-2010 school year is projected to be roughly 5,500 students.

Each of Newtown’s owner/operators has to go through training, every two to four years relicensing, and monthly safety meetings during the school year.

Mr Carroll said the owner/operators also work with the administrators to make sure the routes in town are as efficient as possible.

“A company wouldn’t do that,” said Mr Carroll, regarding the difference between the transportation system in Newtown and the general alternative of having a bus company handle transportation.

“We’re all CPR and First Aid certified,” said Ms Schierloh, something she said towns with bus companies would not have.

Mr Carroll said most bus companies do not allow their drivers to apply first aid to a child because of the risks associated with touching a student.

“To me,” he said, “you’re the first responder. You’re the adult.”

Ms Voight said as a mom, if her child was on a bus and a bus driver did not respond when her child got hurt, “I’m going to be upset.”

Personal calls from parents are another thing associated with the job of being an owner/operator in Newtown.

“The parents call us at our homes at night,” Mr Carroll said.

In one situation Mr Carroll said he got a call from a parent because her son had said he was being bullied while on the bus. Mr Carroll said he checked the video surveillance from the bus, and informed the mother that it did not appear to happen on the bus. When the mother confronted her child, he said, it turned out to be an entirely different situation.

Ms Schierloh said other times personal calls are made because students left something on the bus.

As drivers in town, Ms Schierloh said it is in their best interest to avoid the flagpole intersection on Main Street, but Mr Carroll said it can be a good training tool for a new driver.

The MTM Transportation Inc contract is scheduled to be opened on March 23, as specified by its’ contract with the town.