St. Martin Parish revamps school bus routes to cut dead miles

BREAUX BRIDGE — On a relatively uneventful school day earlier this semester, a maintenance employee in the St. Martin Parish public school district received an urgent telephone call from his son shortly before school let out.

“Dad, you need to come pick me up from school today,” the boy said without providing a reason. When the two had made it about half way home, the father turned to his son and asked why he couldn’t have taken the bus as usual that afternoon, was it overloaded?

“We have to sit two or three to a seat now, dad, and I can’t stretch out my legs,” came the boy’s response, School Board President Jimmy Blanchard recalled in a recent interview.

St. Martin Parish schools have turned over a new leaf this school year — they’ve completely revamped the district’s school bus routes by organizing them for the first time in an effort to cut down on “dead miles” and minimize diesel costs at a time when fuel prices are skyrocketing.

Dead miles are unnecessary or redundant miles. Like last year when three different buses drove down Zin Zin Road — not far from Breaux Bridge High School — each day to pick up separate loads of students.

Before this year, the district busing system was in disarray. Bus drivers arbitrarily created their own routes to their convenience and frequently traded streets or stops with other drivers if they felt like it, school officials said.

“You just did what you wanted,” said Herbert Thibodeaux, St. Martin’s transportation manager and a bus driver of 24 years.

“We’d say, ‘You’ve got this area, go pick up the kids.’ ”

While there was never any official verificaiton of the bus routes, drivers would submit a list of their passengers to the school district, but they often included students that had graduated “three or four years ago,” Superintendent Richard Lavergne said.

The fewer passengers, the quicker the route and the lighter the load.

“It’s like a teacher,” Lavergne said. “A teacher would rather have a class of 15 than 25. Some of our bus drivers have second jobs, so if you start early, you can get to your other job earlier.”

The drivers generally work about two or three hours a day but are paid for five hours regardless of the length of their routes, which allows them to receive benefits, Lavergne said.

Over the past four years, the price of diesel has more than doubled. In that time, Lavergne said the school district’s fuel budget has increased from around $300,000 to just under $1 million this year. “It was costing us an arm and a leg,” Blanchard said.

More than 370 additional students are riding the bus this school year, many due to the cost of gasoline. Last summer, the School Board decided something finally had to be done.

Thanks to a special committee and some new software, St. Martin Parish schools have trimmed 1,073 miles from the daily bus routes without eliminating a single stop. The total yearly savings in fuel is estimated to be more than $162,000.

Although no one was fired, there are some down sides for the drivers and students. Many of the routes are longer. The students, accustomed to having an entire seat for themselves, have had to adjust to sitting together and, in some cases, getting to the bus stop a few minutes earlier in the morning.

At any rate, Lavergne said he’s pleased with the change so far.

“We have a better handle now and better accountability,” he said.

And at least no one can accuse the School Board any more of having missed the bus.