Good Afternoon West Shore School District Families,

 

As temperatures drop this week and a new season is on the calendar, I hope you have enjoyed the transition into the autumn portion of the school year.

 

Our transportation department continues the hard work in resolving any outstanding issues parents may be facing. After updating K-8 schools last week, we have now nearly finished the process of assigning bus stops to students who did not have them at the high school level. PowerSchool will be updated after students return home on Thursday, September 26th, for our 9-12 students. With a remote day on Friday, this will allow drivers time to process their updated routes, provide feedback and implement changes by Monday morning, September 30, 2024.

 

Another primary goal of the past week was to reduce the number of issues for our students with special transportation needs. While progress has been made, there are students and families who still require assistance. The District is taking measures, including reaching out to third-party contractors, to assist the families who still are in need of transportation. We are working to ensure those needs are met soon.

 

For parents whose students will be involved in our Kindergarten Acceleration Program (KAP) that starts Monday, we are anticipating those routes to be finalized by Friday afternoon, September 27th, and uploaded over the weekend into PowerSchool. We do not expect similar issues that we have faced with transportation thus far. While there may be adjustments much like the first week of school, KAP families can expect business as usual for the school year.

 

We continue to process outstanding Transportation Exception Requests along with bus stop adjustments, which we now anticipate to move more quickly going forward. Thank you to those families who have been waiting for these to be addressed. While our goal has been to ensure every student has a route to-and-from school, we now will be able to better optimize these requests as well.

 

Throughout this process, we've also realized the benefits of a more accessible transportation communication process with families. At this time, we will be keeping the email address [email protected] available to families for future use. However, we request families follow established guidelines for submitting Transportation Exception Requests here. In many cases, this includes involving your building principal first before submitting a request for consideration. This email inbox may be used to request bus stop adjustments or to inform the Transportation Department of any general concerns as a further means of communicating with families.

 

We sincerely thank you again for your continued cooperation and support in ensuring the success of our students, staff and families.

 

Sincerely,

 

Todd B. Stoltz, Ed.D.

Superintendent

#WestShoreProud