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Hudson cancels class; Stow gives wrong info
By John Higgins
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Thursday, Sep 04, 2008
Computer glitches fouled up school bus routes so badly that Hudson had to cancel classes on Wednesday and Stow-Munroe Falls had to send home letters with corrected bus information for the third time.
In Hudson, the software that the busing contractor — First Student — used to adjust routes this school year to save money dropped 10 percent of the student riders last week.
''That 10 percent didn't get picked up on the first day of school,'' said First Student spokeswoman Nicole Jones. ''In an effort to re-route and go back to last year's routing over the weekend, it was clear by [Tuesday] there were still some significant issues regarding the routing problems.''
She said the Cincinnati-based company offered to work through the night Tuesday to solve the problem by the time school started, but the district
decided to cancel classes.
''It's the first time to our knowledge that there has been a school closing because of bus route issues in First Student's history,'' Jones said.
First Student, which operates in 40 states and nine Canadian provinces, has 24 contracts in Ohio, Jones said.
Superintendent Steven Farnsworth said the decision was made Tuesday night to close.
''It was obvious to us that even if they worked through the night, it would not be fixed,'' Farnsworth said.
Farnsworth said the company is still fixing some routes, but classes will be in session today.
More efficient start times and bus routes were the district's goal, but Farnsworth said he was not told in advance of the initial route changes.
''I did not know that we were wholesale changing our routes until the first day,'' Farnsworth said. ''There's a lot of preparation that has to take place with the staff and the community and that simply didn't happen.''
The district pays the company $2.3 million a year and 3,600 of its 5,100 students ride a bus.
Stow-Munroe Falls has had its own computer problems. The district transports its students, but uses software to generate letters informing parents about bus routes.
The first round of letters contained ''a lot of erroneous information,'' said district spokeswoman Jennifer Huffman.
One problem affected Holy Family students. ''All of their eighth-graders somehow got classified as ninth-graders attending our high school,'' Huffman said.
The district notified parents by phone about the problems, but that caused parents whose letters were correct to second-guess the information.
''We tried to correct it last Friday,'' Huffman said. ''We printed out a whole new batch of letters and those were wrong. Round three: We have new letters coming home with students that should be correct.''
Huffman said the final glitches are being worked out.
''All we can do is continue to apologize and ask for parents' patience,'' Huffman said.
Among those affected was Crystal Armbruster, whose 5-year-old started kindergarten.
''The first day, my son was more than an hour late getting home,'' Armbruster said. ''They were asking my kindergartner where he was supposed to be getting off at.''
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John Higgins can be reached at 330-996-3792 or jhiggins@thebeaconjournal.com.
Computer glitches fouled up school bus routes so badly that Hudson had to cancel classes on Wednesday and Stow-Munroe Falls had to send home letters with corrected bus information for the third time.
Get the full article here.
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