Bus Passes, Budgets, and Turnover

Abstract

The only alternative Mr. Lalley sees to self-imposed criticism and self-induced improvement is self-destruction. And there's an awesome power for progress that is unleashed when everyone helps willingly and contributes in large ways and small to the noble mission of our schools. EVERY morning when my district's 270 kindergartners and first-graders arrive at school, about 60 of them are carrying a note from a parent or caretaker. After school my child is going somewhere other than the usual place, the note will say. It could be to a friend's house or to Brownies or to a birthday party or to day care. Perhaps a grandparent or a neighbor is coming to get the child. In some instances, a court order bars certain people from having contact with a child, and the burden of enforcement during the school day and at dismissal time falls on school personnel. In the past, one office assistant took care of all these important messages, and bus passes alone took two hours a day to process. When the assistant's job was eliminated in 1991, the responsibility for bus passes shifted to the school secretary, who already had a full workload. The old procedure was still working, and children still ended up where they were supposed to be. But with one person fewer on the job, we needed a system that was more efficient, but no less effective. There is no room for error or laxity when the safety of small children is at stake. How could we solve our problem? To resolve the bus pass issue, I sat down with the secretary and asked her to describe the current process, so we could both understand how it worked. Then I asked some simple questions, derived from the literature on quality management: How did she think this process could be improved? What might be done differently to save time and even improve service? If the system were computerized, she suggested, it might save precious minutes; so we brainstormed how such a computer system might work. All the students would be in an easily accessible database, all the essential bus schedule and contact information for each student would be readily available, and the system would flag any special situation such as a court order. Such a system would not only run faster, we imagined, but would be more reliable as well. The computer could print passes for the bus driver that included the date, student's name, telephone number, bus number, and destination. Meanwhile, the classroom assistants, doubling as bus aides and armed with a daily adult pickup list, also generated by the computer, could ensure that children were released to the right person. Neither of us knew much about computers, but with the help of a volunteer programmer, we soon had our system up and running. After several subsequent enhancements, the bus pass system serves more students, takes one-third the time, and offers better-quality service than ever. The bus pass issue was not an emergency, but it typifies many of the problems I have faced during my years as the superintendent of three school districts in two New Hampshire towns. The problems that present themselves are generally not crises, but instead involve finding ways to become more productive, to stretch limited resources. It's great to be able to anticipate and prevent problems before they happen, but, of course, it doesn't always work that way, as I learned from a hard and embarrassing lesson. A couple of years ago, one of our school districts unexpectedly ran short of special education funds in the last few months of the school year. Like many districts, we base our special education budgets on the students we expect to serve in our district programs and in out-of-district placements. We know special education costs are difficult to predict and can change dramatically when students move into or out of the district or when students' educational needs change. This uncertainty may explain the problem, but it doesn't solve it. …