Trustee board given transportation update on bus and van fleets

ATASCADERO — At its regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 14, the Atascadero Unified School District (AUSD) Board of Trustees went over the new district policy on cellphone use in classrooms.

The item was brought forth to the trustee board during Superintendant Tom Butler’s portion on Administrative Business. Student Expectations for Cell Phone and Personal Devices was an informational item only and was not voted on by the board.

“I think all of us can acknowledge that cellphones can be a distraction to people of any age, but certainly, in our classrooms, we want to make sure that we’re focusing on the daily lessons, being able to participate in the rich lessons that our teachers are making,” stated Butler. “And then also, unfortunately, there’s no shortage of bad things that people have figured out what to do with phones. If you will, and technology in general. We want to protect our students on all fronts.”

Butler said that he talked to all of the district’s school sites, including elementary, middle, and high school. 

“Here’s the board general rules. This is the expectation,” he stated. “As we take a look at the high school the phone is to be put away during class time. However, break and lunch would be seen as non-classtime, and at that time, students can take out their phones at the high school.”

He went on to say that the rule for middle school is that phones be turned off and put away for the duration of the school day and that many students take them out and turn them back on when they exit the campus. The same rules apply at the elementary school level. Butler also commented on how much of a change he’s seen in classrooms since last spring.

“It’s helped a lot this year. We’re in a much better place. There can still be bullying through social media or different things like that, but it’s really reduced that,” he said. “It’s reduced different possible interactions that wouldn’t be approprate through the phones. They don’t have access to them in the day.”

He also stated that engagement in classrooms is up, and teachers are saying students are more focused, and sticking with the lessons, and following directions.

“Any violation on a digital device that’s suspendable and/or expelable gets processed that way. So, there’s no hiding behind the device. That doesn’t stop the student from a consequence,” added Butler. “If they threaten somebody, for instance, on a device, depending on the level of the threat, certainly suspendable, certainly potentially expellable. Our staff will evaluate all that and then we’ll execute the right consequences. We work with the family.”

The use of AI was also brought up, and it was pointed out that the use of AI fell under all the same codes as cellphone use. Atascadero High School (AHS) Principal Nikki Baca commented that all administrators at AHS added AI language into their handbooks this year to address the possible issue but also said that the high school has not had any reportable instances of AI use.

The trustee board was then addressed with a Transportation Update from Assistant Superintendent of Business Services Kendyl Darnell.

“So we wanted to take an opportunity, as we are going to be making decisions on transportation in the future, to review our transportation department by the numbers. What is the data behind our transportation,” stated Darnell.

The AUSD’s current bus fleet features 24 buses, which include operational and nonoperational vehicles. They have 15 larger buses and nine smaller, with nine of the larger buses (running regular am/pm routes) and four of the smaller ones (running Special Education Routes) being operational.

“The age of our fleet, we do have an aging fleet. Fourteen of our buses are 25 years or older, eight of them are 10 years or older. We have one 8-year-old bus, and we have one toddler 4-year-old bus,” Darnell said.

The district also has a van fleet with eight vans, which support the Special Education Routes and are used for school activities. Darnell also commented that the van fleet covers the district’s current needs but that they are forwardplanning and said that two additional vans would cover more school activities for the students.

“Regardless of the direction we choose to go, electric buses or diesel buses, we do have needs to maintain our current fleet and our current level of operations,” added Darnell. “So within the next 24 months, we anticipate needing to replace approximately seven buses to maintain our current operations. So the routes and the extracurriculars that we’re supporting now.”

Three of those needs are associated with AUSD’s larger buses and four with their smaller buses. 

The next regularly scheduled AUSD Board of Trustees meeting will be on Tuesday, Feb. 4, at 7 p.m.