Published February 28, 2019
By JILLIAN STRING
NORTH READING — Superintendent Jon Bernard, along with Director of Finance and Operations Michael Connelly, North Reading Transportation (NRT) owner John McCarthy, NRT Representative to North Reading Public Schools Maritza Baez, and NRT Safety and Training Coordinator Lisa Faretra, met with parents of Batchelder School students on Bus 4 on Tuesday afternoon.
Bernard opened the meeting with introductions and an acknowledgement of concerns with NRT.
“It would be disingenuous of me to not acknowledge to all of you, as parents, as taxpayers, as payers of the fee for bus transportation, that we have fallen short in some areas of our bus transportation that we provided to your children, and I understand that the concerns exist,” Bernard said.
After a two-hour conversation with approximately 15 parents of Bus 4 students, the administration arrived at a resolution.
Based upon a suggestion by School Committee Chairman Janene Imbriano, who was also in attendance at the meeting, Bernard and McCarthy agreed to assign a NRT staff member to provide additional training and support to the Bus 4 driver on his route for a two-week period.
Tuesday’s meeting was held as a result of ongoing parental concerns with the drivers of Bus 4, including the most recent incident from February 11 when the driver took a wrong turn and arrived at a bus stop prior to picking up the students from school.
Report concerns directly to school personnel
Bernard, Connelly, and McCarthy each stressed that going forward, parents should contact school personnel directly to report concerns with busing.
“We certainly want to deliver the highest quality of consistent, reliable service as we can with bus transportation,” Connelly stated. “Rosaly MacKillop is the main point of contact … if you reach out to Rosaly either through email or her direct line, we will log that call.”
According to Connelly, Bus Transportation Coordinator MacKillop logs each call, as well as the incident, follow-up, investigation, and resolution.
“That really, to me, is the best way to ensure that your concerns get addressed and get researched,” Connelly added.
MacKillop can be reached by phone at 978-526-5252 or by email at rmackillop@nrpsk12.org. Her contact information is listed on the bus transportation page.
Connelly showed parents how to access information regarding bus transportation utilizing the district website (www.north-reading.k12.ma.us/district/business-office/pages/bus-transportation).
Parent Michele Rand stated that she had sent an email to Batchelder Principal Sean Killeen regarding the most recent incident on Bus 4, and had not heard any follow-up.
“It’s been great to hear about the communication you all have, but we have not heard (anything). I’ve emailed Mr. Killeen. I know he has forwarded my emails to you. I’m glad I know a way to communicate directly, but we’re not hearing any follow-up. It’s very frustrating,” Rand said.
Rand also expressed disappointment that neither she nor the other parent from the bus stop were contacted by the administration or NRT to give their account of the incident.
“Nobody contacted me. Nobody contacted (the other parent) to say ‘Hey, what happened? Tell me your side of the story.’ I actually said, ‘Please forward this on and please have NRT contact me and let me know where the confusion was.’ That’s what I asked,” Rand said.
Bernard noted that in his email to all parents regarding the incident, he stated that he would be sharing forwarded emails with NRT during the investigation meeting on February 12, and he also sent a follow-up email to the Bus 4 parents regarding the outcome of the meeting.
Parent Jon Burt stated that he was glad to have a face-to-face meeting, as he felt the allegations on social media were getting out of control.
“I will say, I monitor stuff on social media. Being a parent on Bus 4, I’m looking at this going, ‘Oh my God. This is getting out of control.’ Then, some of the accusations, I work in public safety, and they were just ridiculous accusations, but we have public officials respond to them in such a way, it creates this big, huge thing, like a snowball effect, so you doing this today, I’m glad you’re doing it because it’s getting out of control for no reason, honestly,” Burt said.
Another parent stated that she was glad the incident was posted on social media and in the print media, because she was able to see that other people were noticing the same problems.
Overview of screening and training procedures
“What I want to do is make sure that the parents on Bus 4 have the same experience as the other parents are having in North Reading,” McCarthy said. “That doesn’t mean we’ll never make a mistake. I just want you guys to know when a mistake is made, you’re going to get the answer that you need to make sure it was rectified.”
McCarthy and Faretra explained the process for hiring and training drivers, including three CORI checks, fingerprinting, drug screening, a driving record review, commercial driver’s license (CDL) permit classes, a minimum of 60 training hours before taking the road test for the CDL, and a one- to two-week training period with another NRT driver before beginning a route.
McCarthy also noted that NRT makes use of additional safety precautions on its buses with GPS tracking and four video cameras per bus. They also use the child checkmate system, which requires the driver to check the entire bus to ensure no students remain on it after completion of the route.
McCarthy assured the parents that either he or Faretra would join the current Bus 4 driver on the route for a two-week period that began yesterday (February 27) to provide additional support, and to allow more time for students and families to get to know and trust the driver.
