Change Creates Opportunity

1. By policy, the Forsyth County Board of Education provides school bus transportation for all eligible Forsyth County students based on the student’s residence and school of enrollment, and in compliance with Federal, State and/or Local laws, rules, regulations and/or procedures. The Transportation Department is authorized to develop a framework and procedures that provide transportation services to eligible Forsyth County Public School students.

2. Change Creates Opportunity 2008-09 (32,374 students) 2013-14 (40,600 students (+25%)) 9 MS (13%) 5HS (25%) 20 ES (25%) 34 All Schools (21%) ============= 305 drivers (+5%/-57) 35 monitors (+0%/-8) 372 school buses (+7%/-63) 567 routes (+17%/-36) 24 Support Staff (+0%) 8 MS 4 HS 16 ES 28 All Schools =========== 290 drivers 35 monitors. 348 school buses 483 routes 24 Support Staff

3. Transportation Goals • The Transportation Department mission is to provide transportation services that “protect students, support quality learning and improve the community.” • We strive to “maximize our operational efficiency” (Goal 5 of our Strategic Plan) while improving the quality of our service. • Attention to continuous improvement of structure, process and procedure. • Use timely, relevant and accurate information from GPS, TIOS, DOE and Infinite Campus to accumulate performance data, analyze improvement opportunities and make effective decisions. • Development of Transportation’s “human capital” (Goals 2,3 and 4); employees, students and stakeholders who interact on a daily basis with our service. • The use of on-line tools to facilitate Safe, Orderly And Respectful school bus learning. • The use of alternative methods of engaging and teaching employees, students and stakeholders about the business of “protecting students and supporting quality learning.”

4. Transportation by the Numbers • We serve 23,000 students twice per day to and from 7,484 bus stops (at a rate of more than 2 students per second). We will have the opportunity to impact 8,188,000 students this year on route trips alone! • 71% (ES), 37% HS and 67% MS students ride the school bus on any given school day. • We carry an average of 48 elementary school students, 34 High School students or 39 middle school students per bus route. On any given afternoon, we carry 42 students for every bus route. • We deliver students on time and ready to learn! • 98.0% of our routes arrive 10 minutes or more before school starts • 99.7% of our routes arrive 5 minutes or more before school starts • 100% of our routes regularly arrive before school starts All in spite of “chicken oil” spills, gas leaks, traffic jams, major accidents and assorted obstructions in or around the roadways.

5. Transportation by the Numbers • Our expected “arrival window” at the schools is the smallest we know. (20 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes in the afternoon). • To date we have returned an average 14 per afternoon students to their schools in the afternoon due to inconsistency at stop. • We support nearly 3,000 activity trips annually. Many trips depart during route times (6:00-8:50 and 2:00-4:45pm). • Our “activity trip cost” to the schools ($1.63 per mile for the bus and $14.90 per hour for the driver) is the lowest in the metro region.

6. Transportation by the Numbers • On average, we travel 22,000 miles a day (1,000,000 miles so far in SY 2013-14) and over 4,000,000 miles annually. • Our fleet average age is 9.08 years. We’ve had our oldest buses for 16 years and our newest for 2 years. • The average (mean) number of miles on our school buses is 98,119. The highest mileage we have on any school bus is 246,980! • We use approximately 600,000 gallons of school bus fuel annually (a B20 blend of ultra-low diesel and biodiesel). • Every school bus was inspected by the State in September and we had a total of only 3 “red flags”, all repaired immediately. Our School Bus to Mechanic Ratio is 60-1, well above what other systems maintain.

7. Transportation by the Numbers • Through our 20-20 School bus Safety Program, we trained 340 drivers and monitors (what and how to teach their students about protecting themselves). • In the first month of school, we taught 19,000 students (and hundreds of teachers) to help us protect them on and around the school bus. We Certified 20 elementary schools as Safe, Orderly And Respectful, helping them to meet school bus training requirements set by the Georgia DOE! • Our 20-20 student training program has been featured on The Headline News Network, presented to the Georgia Association for Pupil Transportation, the Southeastern States Pupil Transportation Conference and the Georgia Emergency Management Association’s “Great Schools” Conference. It has been adopted successfully in Marietta City and Henry County Schools and is being presented in Newton County Schools next week. • Since August of 2012, our message of the importance of developing Safe, Orderly And Respectful school bus riding habits has been presented to over 45,000 students, teachers, parents and community members. With Elvis (our department safety owl and mascot), we’ve encouraged and engaged students, parents, teachers and transportation employees as they have learned how to be safe, orderly and respectful in and around the school bus.

10. Director Transportation Supervisor (South) Transportation Supervisor (North) Transportation Supervisor (Information Management) Driver Trainer Shop Foreman (North) Shop Foreman (South) Activity Trips, Purchasing and Reception Dispatch Routing 14 23 30 38 43 57 08 09 29 34 56 Mechanics Drivers Monitors (08) North Middle - (Coal Mountain, Silver City, and North High) (09) Otwell Middle - (Cumming, Whitlow and Forsyth Central High) (14) South Middle - (Brookwood, Daves Creek and Lambert High) (23) Vickery Middle - (Vickery (ES), Midway and West High) * (29) Liberty Middle - (Matt, Kelly Mill and Sawnee) (30) Riverwatch Middle - (Sharon, Johns Creek and Settles Bridge) (34) Little Mill Middle - (Chestatee and Chattahoochee) (38) Piney Grove Middle - (Big Creek, Shiloh Point and South High)* (43) Lakeside Middle - (Haw Creek and Mashburn)

11. “Safety, order and respect are necessary conditions for teaching and learning to occur.”

12. Thank You! “Protecting students” requires thousands of “moving parts” to operate seamlessly, each doing exactly what is needed to move students safely to school. School bus drivers, students, parents, pedestrians and motorists all have a stake, and therefore a responsibility to protect students. In the perfect school bus world, each partner fulfills that responsibility completely by following laws, procedures and “best practices” designed to protect students. In the perfect school bus world, each partner needs to be prepared to serve as the “failsafe” if any of the others fail to perform appropriately. We believe, as do the Georgia Associations of School Boards and School Superintendents, that our expectations for safe, orderly and respectful school bus behaviors provide the necessary first step for students to learn how to help protect themselves. We believe the school bus and bus driver provide the safest transportation service available to students as they travel to and from school. We also believe that with help from our partners and attention to detail, we can improve that safety record while teaching students valuable lessons that they can apply in the larger world! Thank you for all you do to support our department and our mission!