FULL TRANSCRIPT (with timecode)
Voices E5 Jim Pearson
File Name: Voices E5 Jim Pearson.mp3
File Length: 00:09:49
SPEAKERS
Int - Introduction
JK - Jeff Krakoff
JP - Jim Pearson
00:00:02:24 - 00:00:07:24
Introduction: Welcome to Voices, a podcast brought to you by the Seneca Valley School District.
00:00:10:22 - 00:00:18:17
Jeff Krakoff: I'm Jeff Krakoff. I'm here with Jim Pearson, Seneca Valley Transportation Director. Thanks for joining us this morning.
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Jim Pearson: Great to be here.
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Jeff Krakoff: A little background on you. You've been with Seneca Valley since 2011. In addition to being transportation director, you've gone through the training and received your commercials driver's license. You're endorsed by various people, transportation associations in the state and in the region, but before that you were an assistant principal, you were a dean of students, so you've got a well-rounded background with students for sure.
00:00:49:29 - 00:01:07:12
Jeff Krakoff: So let's talk about transportation as we start the new school year in this pandemic environment. You know I think a lot of parents are interested. What are some of the safety measures you're taking and the school district is taking to make sure students are safe on buses?
00:01:08:00 - 00:01:42:29
Jim Pearson: Well first of all you know the cleaning is paramount. And so when the drivers go out for you know the buses will already be cleaned for the high school run. And then in between the high school and the elementary run, they will spritz with, they have a bottle on board, with a disinfectant and they will hit the high touch areas; handrails the backs of seats, you know places that you know students and drivers tend to touch more often.
00:01:43:29 - 00:02:21:09
Jim Pearson: So they will use that in between the high school run and the elementary runs so everything is disinfected before the elementary students come on board. And it's a fast-drying agent. So it only needs 10 minutes contact time to disinfect areas. So then when the elementary students get on board then they will you know be in a disinfected environment. So. Also, masks are very important. Of course that's mandatory from Dr.
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Jim Pearson: Levine's office. So we are asking that all students getting on do have a mask to help. We have the drivers that will be wearing a mask and possibly wearing face shields.
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Jim Pearson: So they are protecting them their selves. So those are some of the things that we have in place.
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Jeff Krakoff: So you mentioned using a disinfectant. How do we ensure safety? I imagine there are approvals of of products used. Right?
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Jim Pearson: Right, yeah. CDC approved. So that's what they, we have two bus contractors; ABC Transit and Valley Lines, and they are using the CDC-approved materials on the buses.
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Jeff Krakoff: Got it. What about the whole idea of social distancing on the buses. What's the protocol there?
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Jim Pearson: Well, what we can do now that we are in what they call the cohort model, where half the population is coming in. That helps us immensely right there. So you figure if there were 60 students assigned to a bus you know you automatically cut it in half so you'd get 30. So on a 72 passenger bus and the way that they designate these is 72 and 84 passenger buses. That's three students to a seat.
00:03:57:01 - 00:04:22:14
Jim Pearson: So what normally say on a 72 passenger bus if we have a goal of no more than two kids to a seat that's 48 students and then on an 84 passenger that's 56 students. So you know we know by looking at the cohort that the numbers are going to be less than that. And so
00:04:24:10 - 00:04:59:10
Jim Pearson: and again wearing a mask. Also, we have parents that are opting out of transportation and that helps us quite a bit. So the more parents that are able to drive or start a carpool in their neighborhood, that will help us reduce our population. And then we also look at some of the other things that the cyber school. So if parents sign up for the cyber school then obviously that takes more kids off the bus.
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Jeff Krakoff: Ok. All right. Are there any other protocols as far as cleaning, sanitizing, disinfecting that the parents should know about, or did we pretty much cover them all?
00:05:10:13 - 00:05:45:16
Jim Pearson: Well, I guess the ventilation so you know when the weather is nice so we can you know bring the windows down. Usually, instead of having the windows all the way down, you know people think that that will help more, but actually, if the windows are just a quarter of the way down then it creates more of a vacuum effect and then they have roof vents that are opened up on top of the ceiling of the bus and it'll suck that air through and up and out of those vents.
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Jim Pearson: So you know if people see that you know they may question you know "why don't they have the windows all the way down," while they're there most of the windows are tinted. So you know if you use that tint that'll help cool down the bus a little bit and then a quarter of a way creates that vacuum.
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Jeff Krakoff: More science than we would have thought about school buses, right?
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Jim Pearson: Right yeah.
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Jeff Krakoff: You mentioned some parents are going to opt-out from busing. Are there any other specific plans for parents who decide to transport their own children or any advice you would give parents as they're transporting.
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Jim Pearson: Well, I would certainly to understand what the dynamics are of the school that they're dropping their child off, because we have tried to separate the cars from the buses. So working with the elementary schools there their traffic patterns have changed. So they should call ahead if in doubt to find out what traffic pattern that they on they're going to face. We usually here on the Seneca campus have the seventh graders that are new to campus, their parents are new to campus,
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Jim Pearson: so just to familiarize themselves with that traffic pattern.
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Jeff Krakoff: Ok. Are there any differences as far as students, depending on age, you bring that up. Do you take any protocols differently for the younger elementary kids versus high school students?
00:07:22:12 - 00:07:58:03
Jim Pearson: One of the things that we're going to do is load back to front. And so as the bus is picking up students on the way to school, the first students on the bus are going to go all the way to the back. But we caution, that if that first couple of stops is only a kindergarten student, we don't want that kid who you know has never ridden a bus before and has never ridden a vehicle without being strapped in with the seat belt, so we don't want that student going all the way to the back of the bus and not know anything about the protocol
00:07:58:06 - 00:08:19:10
Jim Pearson: and he rules of the bus and those type things. So that kindergarten student who is all alone would be asked to maybe sit in the second row versus going all the way to the back. But, if they have a sibling who is a fourth-grader, fifth-grader or something like that then of course they could sit with their brother or sister.
00:08:19:12 - 00:08:32:10
Jeff Krakoff: Right. Makes sense. So, Jim thanks so much. You just just to end with this If I'm from a parent with children there are going to be taking buses you know what what what's the main takeaway I should have?
00:08:33:24 - 00:09:02:00
Jim Pearson: Well, we are doing the best we can to make sure that they are sanitized, disinfected. The mask madatory mask if you are if you don't want your child to wear a mask whether they can't wear a mask because of some underlying health condition or whatever that they would strongly consider you know driving the child to and from school. But that
00:09:03:25 - 00:09:26:22
Jim Pearson: you know the more that I look at people able to serve their community as far as a bus driver. So if they can be a bus driver because obviously the more bus drivers that we have, then the more options that we have as far as reducing even more population and being able to provide a better service.
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Jeff Krakoff: All right. This was great. Very informative. Thanks for taking the time, Jim and good good luck with the rest of the preparations as we get ready to go back to school.
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Jim Pearson: Thank you.
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Jeff Krakoff: All right. Take care.
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Jim Pearson: You too