Parents, students will have a new school busing plan to learn for 2021-22 school year

June 5, 2021  |  By Lisa Scagliotti 

Buses with very few student passengers aboard drop off at Crossett Brook Middle School. Bus ridership has been light this school year during the COVID-19 pandemic with masks required and bus monitors on board to do health screenings are done. A new plan for fall aims to shorten bus rides for all students. Photo by Lisa Scagliotti

It may be end-of-school madness time now but school officials in the Harwood district are already putting out bits of information signaling changes families of K-12 students can expect when school resumes in late August. 

First, school administrators are anticipating schools to be run fully in-person in the new school year, rather than the current hybrid model in place due to COVID-19. The final weeks of this school year have had most students attending just four days in person with Wednesdays remaining remote learning days. Some students opted for remote learning full-time this year due to the pandemic and have not attended in-person at all. 

As the pandemic eases and more Vermonters are vaccinated against COVID-19 including students as young as age 12, school officials around Vermont are planning for more “normal” operations in the fall. 

With that in mind, at the April 14 Harwood Unified Union School Board meeting, Superintendent Brigid Nease unveiled a new busing plan billed as a “complete overhaul.”

Designed to “either save money or break even,” the new plan will consolidate some runs for a total of 16 or 17, down from the current 19, Nease said. Meanwhile it will add “tiers” based on new staggered school start and dismissal times. 

“This is a huge project that we’ve always wanted to take on,” the superintendent explained. “Our admin team is really excited about it.” 

The bottom line will be shorter school bus rides for all students, Nease said. 

One long-sought change this will allow will be to separate high school and elementary school students from riding the same buses, with the exception of Crossett Brook Middle School students in grades 5 and 6. 

“We believe this may increase ridership and ease congestion,” Nease said. 

The new plan will add in the ability for students from the Mad River Valley communities who attend Crossett Brook to ride a bus to school. Currently buses do not transport students to Crossett from the valley in the morning. 

It will mean some new starting times. Schools with younger students will keep their current early times -- that means 7:30 a.m. school opening at Thatcher Brook Primary School. But Crossett Brook and Harwood Middle and High School will shift to openings at 8:30 a.m. Dismissal time for the primary school will remain 2:30 p.m. while middle and high school students will end their day at 3:20 p.m. 

The staggered starts and dismissals are designed to allow for multiple bus runs with separate age groups. Wait times at schools are expected to be shorter as a result. “This will reduce the cost of paying staff to supervise students” who are waiting for a bus or dropped off before they are allowed to enter school, Nease said. 

So far, the notion of staggered arrival and dismissal times have had some feedback from families raising concerns about younger children getting home on the school bus before older siblings. School officials have not addressed that issue yet. 

Details on specific routes have not been ironed out and released yet. School officials promise to have that information prepared ahead of the start of the school year in August. 

Next Friday, June 11, is the final day for the 2020-21 school year. The calendar for 2021-22  notes the first day back to school is Aug. 26.