New transportation head takes wheel

SANDPOINT — When Bill Wright retires at the end of this month as transportation manager for the Lake Pend Oreille School District, he will leave a big pair of shoes to fill. On days when the wind howls and the snow blows sideways in blinding sheets of white, they will feel especially large.

Those workday mornings start early, requiring the manager to head out into the teeth of the storm before making the call about whether or not schools should be closed for a “snow day.”

“I get up at 1:30 or 2 a.m. to do computer work,” said Wright, explaining that the research includes checking National Weather Service forecasts, weather reports from Sandpoint and Coeur d’Alene airports and school closure information from around the region. “Then I hit the road at 2:30 or 3 a.m.

“I intentionally go to the places I think will be hard to drive,” he continued, recalling the times his Subaru Outback wagon slid sideways through stop signs before punching into a snow bank. “But I always get out again.”

After working the side roads off the Highway 200 corridor between his home east of Clark Fork and his office in Sandpoint bus shop, Wright leads a 4 a.m. huddle with district facilities staff who know the conditions in places such as Samuels and Highway 95 north, as well as Sagle and points south. Even then, there is due diligence left to perform, as he calls a network of LPOSD bus drivers to get further information on conditions in their locales before checking in with neighboring West Bonner County, Lakeland and Boundary County school districts to get their read on things.

“And then there’s a subjective evaluation — what would a mom think?” Wright said.

After some last-minute updates on regional weather forecasts, he makes the 4:30 a.m. call to district superintendent Dick Cvitanich with his recommendation. If it’s thumb’s down, the bus yard will sit quietly under a blanket of snow for the day. If he thinks it’s a go, the pre-dawn rumble of big engines announces that a parade of yellow rigs is about to stream out onto the snowy roads.

“The first bus leaves at about 20 minutes after 5 a.m.,” the transportation manager said. “And then it’s a steady progression until 7 a.m.”

On April 1, this early bird schedule and the enormous responsibility that goes with it will be handed over to Jacob Iverson, who comes to the district with eight years of experience and logistics background in the tractor-trailer field.

“There are some correlations between the two, but the safety of kids and the accountability are different — that’s extremely important,” Iverson said. “The school district is also very large and the amount of miles we drive a day is impressive.”

All routes taken into account, the yellow buses cover approximately 3,500 miles each day, with about 500 of them on unpaved roads.

According to assistant transportation manager Shelly Johnson, the district’s fleet of buses makes easy work of transporting 1,200 riders, twice a day, even in foul weather on the bumpiest county roads.

“They’re built like a tank,” she said. “When you have chains on, you can go anywhere.”

With the advent of “insta-chains,” adapting to a sudden stretch of icy road is a simple thing, lead mechanic Shad Hass noted.

“The driver can just push a button and the chains are on,” he said. “The buses are in good shape and they’re heavy, so they handle really well.”

Hass said his first line of offense in the mission to keep school buses rolling is the drivers themselves, who perform a 40-plus point vehicle inspection before leaving on a route in the morning, followed by a similar check when arriving back at the bus yard in the afternoon.

“Drivers are my main source when it comes to repairs,” said Hass, who, along with his two mechanics, conducts 60-day and annual inspections on every vehicle. “They’ll come in and say, ‘My bus has never done this before.’ We couldn’t do what we do without them.”

Beyond keeping mechanics up to speed on how the buses are running, the drivers also play the combined role of drill sergeant, coach and, sometimes, confidante to students along the 32 regular routes and six special needs routes in the far-flung district. And they do it all while looking at the world backwards.

“Try working with a busload of up to 70 kids and keeping them behaved with a mirror,” Johnson said.

Wright agrees that the driver’s job is one of the hardest around. He knows from experience, having worked as an LPOSD school bus driver for four years before taking the transportation manager’s position in 2008.

“Steering the bus is the easy part,” he said. “My first week of driving, I pulled over to talk to a kid who had moved seats. I stood up real fast and turned around and noticed that all of the kids had moved seats.”

Wright began to lecture the bus-bound congregation — all of whom looked at him in total dismay — about the importance of safety and staying put when the vehicle is in motion. Jumping from one side of the bus to the other was absolutely not allowed, he told them. It was at about that time in the sermon that the reality of how a mirror works popped into his mind, explaining how 45 riders could appear to have changed places in the blink of an eye. He ended the lecture, started the bus and pulled back onto the road a bit red-faced.

“It took a little while to build my credibility back up,” he confided.

“You have to have nerves of steel to be a school bus driver,” Johnson said. “And a sense of humor will get you a long way with the kids.”

The district’s fleet of 50 buses handles the daily routes, as well as the busy schedule of field trips and sports activities that Johnson keeps track of on what staff members respectfully refer to as “The Board.”

“One of the first things I learned when I got here was that you don’t touch The Board,” Iverson said. “The logistics of coordinating all of that — the bus routes and supporting the district for all of the activities — takes a lot of work. There’s a real ‘can-do’ attitude toward customer service around here.”

“We don’t want to say ‘no’ because we want to be helpful to the district,” said Johnson. “Our staff always goes the extra mile — for students on the bus, for parents and for each other.”

For all of the teamwork that goes on behind the scenes, those big, yellow buses still remain the most visible feature of LPOSD’s transportation services. Each driver is assigned a specific vehicle and every bus has its own set of eccentricities, according to Hass.

“They’re all yellow,” the lead mechanic said. “But that’s about the only thing they have in common.”