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ROTTERDAM
Three school districts ponder possibility of joint bus garage
BY MICHAEL GOOT Gazette Reporter

    The Schalmont, Mohonasen and Duanesburg school districts are exploring the possibility of a shared bus garage.
    Schalmont and Duanesburg officials met recently to discuss ways to share services in this tight fiscal climate with the new property tax levy cap. This followed a similar meeting Mohonasen and Schalmont had over the summer.
    “I think the interest is moving forward on a joint study,” said Schalmont Superintendent Valerie Kelsey.
    She said the next step is for each district to prepare a report about its current bus fleet and their transportation needs and go from there.
    All three districts have been trying to upgrade their aging and inadequate bus garages. Duanesburg Superintendent Christine Crowley said her bus garage, located next to the elementary is rusting out. “We found a study from years ago that was done. Our business administrators right now are trying to update that information,” she said.
    Crowley has also brought up the issue of a joint bus garage with both the town of Duanesburg and the village of Delanson.
    Mohonasen spokeswoman Adrienne Leon said there have not been any further conversations about a joint bus garage since the summer meeting. “However, the option of some kind of feasibility study/ shared services is still on the table,” she said in an email.
    Mohonasen voters in December 2010 rejected an effort to build a bus garage as part of a $43 million capital project that included improvements at all four schools. In May of that year, voters had approved purchasing about 36 acres of land adjacent to the high school and middle school campus that was to have been part of this expansion plan.
    In addition to a bus facility, Schalmont and Duanesburg are having preliminary conversations about doing a pilot program to offer joint courses for high school classes that have low enrollment and other academic programs. For example, Schalmont has the Project Lead the Way pre-engineering program but Duanesburg doesn’t. However, Duanesburg has a nanotechnology course. Kelsey said one idea would be to offer some type of class through video conferencing. ......................>>>>.........................>>>>.......................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r01900&AppName=1

Quoted from DemocraticVoiceOfReason

Hopefully this is the first step towards merging the 3 districts into 1 district --- which in turn is the first step to merging ALL 6 school districts in the county into 1 district.

Quoted from DemocraticVoiceOfReason

There have been problems with private bus companies transporting school children in the past.   I am not willing to put our childrens' safety and well-being at risk by privatizing.

Quoted from DemocraticVoiceOfReason

There have been problems with private bus companies transporting school children in the past.   I am not willing to put our childrens' safety and well-being at risk by privatizing.

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CLIFTON PARK — A Shenendehowa school bus driver fired after testing positive for marijuana must be returned to the job, an appellate court has ruled.

The state Appellate Division split 3-2 in reversing a Supreme Court decision.

A district driver for nearly 10 years, Cynthia DiDomenicantonio was fired November 10, 2009. Her union, the Civil Service Employees Association, challenged the dismissal, and an arbitrator who heard the case ordered her reinstated without six months of back pay. The district was told to provide follow-up testing and substance-abuse counseling.

The state Supreme Court reversed the order, and CSEA appealed. In a decision dated Thursday, Judges William E. McCarthy, Robert Rose and Leslie Stein ruled the lower court should not substitute its judgment for the arbitrator's.

"Petitioner is reasonably concerned, as are we, about protecting school children from bus drivers who use drugs or alcohol," McCarthy wrote. "The United States Supreme Court has, however, held that a similar arbitration award reinstating a driver who failed a drug test 'violates no specific provision of any law or regulation. It is consistent with (U.S. Department of Transportation) rules requiring completion of substance-abuse treatment before returning to work' and other related requirements."

DiDomenicantonio had a previously unblemished record, had never before failed a drug test and had received excellent evaluations, the court said. Reached for comment on Monday, DiDomenicantonio referred questions to her attorney.

Therese Assalian, spokeswoman for the union, said the district had the option to suspend the driver with or without pay, subject her to testing or take other actions short of firing.

The contract states: "Suspension without pay or discharge may be invoked with less than two (2) written warnings where the employee's conduct creates a danger to the health, safety or welfare of staff, students and/or the general public A positive result in any required drug or alcohol test is considered such a danger."

While the district contended it had a zero-tolerance party for positive drug tests, the court majority ruled it failed to produce one.

In a dissent, Judge E. Michael Kavanagh said the district acted properly. Judge Bernard J. Malone Jr. concurred.

"It is difficult to understand how, on the one hand, the majority can concede that petitioner had the option under the collective bargaining agreement to discharge respondent Cynthia DiDomenicantonio for failing a drug test and, on the other, conclude that petitioner violated the CBA when it chose that option," Kavanagh wrote.

The arbitrator added requirements that the district consider other factors not in the contract, according to Kavanagh.

"For these reasons, and for what we believe are sound public policy considerations implicated by petitioner's legitimate concern that school bus drivers not be substance abusers, we believe that the arbitrator exceeded his authority and issued a determination that violates sound public policy," the judge wrote.

The district is weighing its options and has not reinstated the driver, spokeswoman Kelly DeFeciani said.

Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/loca.....05.php#ixzz1gzmDzqe5

Quoted from Patches

[b       ]A survey is needed to  see just how many busses are really needed...      [/b]

How many chilcdren are driven to school everyday?????    quite a big number....

how many students drive their own vehicles......quite a big number...

How many busses are half or less full on a daily basis????  

You would be surprised to see how many chilcdren actually ride the bus....in all schools...

AND

as in anything else , there are always those who spoil the reputations of all kinds of carreers/jobs....reality...can't trust no one...

Quoted from rampage

There are 2 ways that I see this playing out.  I live in the Schalmont School District.  For Schalmont, they could either become the center of the 3 school districts (which they sort of are already), and the buses from Schalmont could go ahead and use the bus garages in Mohonasen and Duanesburg School districts to help to save money, although it would mean a longer commute for the drivers of the buses to get to and from work each day.  The way that I would see this playing out is that the buses for the Schalmont School district could go out from the schools (Middle School / High School campus and Jefferson), then with the fact that the district is so spread out that it would save on gas to have the buses parked at the bus garages of either Mohonasen or Duanesburg for those that cover the outside areas, i.e. the bus that covers the Mariaville area may go to the Duanesburg garage, and those that cover down towards the old Pine Grove area may find it easier to be parked at the Mohonasen garage.  The fact is, though, that this idea would be less of a combination of services of the districts, and instead, using parking spots to lower the amount of gas that is used on the buses, and in the end, less miles would lead to a smaller gas bill and less repairs needed to be done.  I doubt, quite a bit, that there would be as much of a chance, that the Duanesburg and Mohonasen districts would see the savings, unless Schalmont would be paying to keep the buses at these locations.