October 7, 2022
Dear Parents, Students, Staff, & Community Members:
This letter serves as an official notice from the MPS Transportation Department regarding upcoming changes to our bus routes and schedules for transporting our students to and from school. These changes will be effective on Tuesday, October 11th, 2022.
Due to a critical bus driver shortage, we have made the difficult but necessary decision to reduce from 6 bus routes to 5 bus routes beginning TUESDAY, OCTOBER 11TH. This change is in effect until further notice and may potentially be permanent. After examining the routes with our Lead Bus Driver, Lisa Harger-Nelson, we believe that there is adequate room on our buses to accommodate this change with relatively minor adjustments to pick up and drop off times being required. With our current number of drivers, this will enable us to continue to provide excellent transportation service to our students and in the near future provide improved transportation service to all of our student-athletes for out of town contests.
For the next month or so, we will be down two bus drivers. So, until one or both of those drivers return, we will only be able to provide team transportation to athletic events on Saturdays and when departure times for athletic trips are scheduled after our regular PM route drivers return. Until further notice, we will not be able to transport athletic teams requiring early departure times. For the rest of the fall sports season, we are asking for the help of our parents in working with Athletic Director Nicole Lasak and our fall sports coaches to carpool as needed in order to provide transportation to our student-athletes. The district owns two passenger vans which will also be used to help in transporting student-athletes.
Making these changes to our transportation services is essential and we ask for your patience, understanding, flexibility, and help as we make this transition together. Some buses and regular routes will NOT be impacted by these changes. There are no route or ridership changes to Bill LeVeque’s (Camel) bus and Rick Stephen’s (Frog) bus.
The specific route changes and adjustments are as follows:
Lisa Harger-Nelson’s (Bear) bus and Tom Bray’s (Turtle) bus will collectively absorb the ridership of Terry Bower’s (Dinosaur) bus. Kevin Westcomb’s (Deer) bus will absorb the Powell Lake stops previously transported by Tom Bray’s (Turtle) bus.
Kevin’s Deer bus will pick up Powell Lake riders at approximately 6:30-6:35am. The estimated pickup times for Shingleton riders on Kevin’s Deer bus is approximately 6:55-7:05am.
Students originally on Terry Bower’s (Dinosaur) route that live on Schierschmidt Rd., on H-58 to Miner’s Castle Rd., on Miner’s Castle Rd., on Carmody Rd., on Rosewood Park, on the North ½ of Connors Rd. from H-58 to Miller Rd., on Cemetery Rd., Alger Heights, Irish Hills, Native American Housing, Knox St., and St. Martin’s Hill WILL NOW RIDE TOM BRAY’S TURTLE BUS.
Students originally on Terry Bower’s (Dinosaur) route that live on Indian Town Rd. (est. pick-up 6:55-7:00am), and Hill Top Rd. (est. pick-up 7:05-7:10am), WILL NOW RIDE LISA’S BEAR BUS. Additionally, Lisa’s Bear bus will pick up one family (already communicated with) on H-58 between Indian Town and Hilltop Roads.
Please note that pick up times may be a little earlier for some riders and drop off times may be a little later for some riders. Until we have everything smoothed out, we ask that beginning on October 11th, you have your students waiting for the bus 10 MINUTES EARLIER than usual, and plan in some cases for students to arrive home 10 minutes later than before. There will be some fluidity in pickup and dropoff times until everyone is used to the changes.
These changes are effective on Tuesday, October 11th, so on Monday, October 10th, bus drivers will be speaking directly with their student riders about the changes. If you have specific questions about routes, and/or pick-up and drop off times, please contact Lisa Harger-Nelson directly at 906-202-9207 and/or via email to lisa.harger-nelson@mps-up.com. All other questions or requests can be directed to me at mike.travis@mps-up.com.
Together the Mustang Nation can and will do great things!
Sincerely,
Michael J. Travis
Superintendent & Auxiliary Services Director