St. Cloud Area School District Still Short on Bus Drivers

ST. CLOUD – Several weeks into the new school year, the St. Cloud area school district is still experiencing a shortage of school bus drivers.
There are around 9,000 students that the district buses to and from school every day. Scott Dahlin is the transportation supervisor with St. Cloud area schools, he says they are still looking for a few drivers.
“The drivers are still doing their regular routes. What we end up doing to cover our routes is putting out mechanic and office staff [to drive].”
Four independent school bus operators serve the district. The district also has a small fleet of buses. Troy Voigt of Voigt’s School Bus Services in St. Cloud says the entire transportation field is being hit with a shortage of drivers.
“It’s hard to find drivers but it’s not exclusive to bussing, it’s any commercial driving across the nation. There’s some pretty staggering estimates [saying] by the year 2020 how short the country is going to be for commercial drivers.”
A survey by the magazine School Bus Fleet finds the driver shortage is being felt both across Minnesota and the country. Just six percent of respondents say they have enough drivers.
Dahlin says a shortage of St. Cloud State graduates applying and a spike up in the minimum wage with bus drivers pay remaining steady, may be behind the shortage.
“There’s a lot of responsibility with being a bus driver and I think people consider that and if they can work someplace else with the minimum wage or above that compared to what the bus drivers are making. So we have to start making adjustments there.”
Voigt says the baby boomer generation is a little more set now with an improving economy and may have less need to drive a bus part time after retirement.
Voigt’s School Bus Services is offering a signing bonus of $500 as it looks to fill several more driver positions for its routes. Both Dahlin and Voigt agree that being a bus driver is a rewarding job.
“You’re the first person to greet them when they start and finish their day. I really do enjoy driving, I wish I could do it all day long,” Voigt says.

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Bill Heaney: education is key to driving forward the economy

Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale has been campaigning on education
It must be true. Dumbarton MSP Jackie Baillie said it on the floor of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh.

Our schools are not achieving what the country needs from them.

Here is what she said about it in a debate on the economy, investment in skills, education and not cutting taxes.

Jackie, who is Scottish Labour’s public services spokesperson, told parliament: “There is little to celebrate when the attainment gap [in our schools] is 12 percent in reading, 21 percent in writing and 24 percent in maths.”

For the three Rs, then, we are not producing the results our country needs to strengthen the pool of labour available to companies in employment-starved West Dunbartonshire.

Too many children are leaving school without the basics to get themselves a job. Youth unemployment figures show this very clearly.

The MSP’s statement comes hard on the heels of West Dunbartonshire education director Terry Lanagan’s regrettable home movie. He told everyone prepared to watch and listen to him that our schools are the epitome of academic achievement. He said they had won more gongs than you could shake a pointer at or hit with a duster.

This may be an exaggeration but it’s really no less accurate than Mr Lanagan’s allegations about local media readership figures.

Do we have to drag him into the digital age? His claim that more people read the council website is nonsense.

Ms Baillie’s statement comes in the wake of the EIS, the teachers’ union, telling us that our schools are at breaking point. And that our teachers are sick to the back teeth of the way our schools are run by the education department.

Sickness absence among teachers is said to be at an all-time high. They claim they are working up to 70 hours a week and are stressed to their limits.

They are extremely unhappy about the council’s teacher appointment strategy, especially in regard to promoted posts which carry too much responsibility and should be shared out in an equitable manner.

It would appear that the only ones not under pressure in West Dunbartonshire are the councillors themselves who consider they can cope – and take the not insignificant rewards – for just four full council meetings a year.

And organise their timetable for meetings to suit the education convener, of all people, who needs to go to college to pick up some education for herself.

No wonder their independent opponents call them part-timers.

Mr Lanagan’s message, however, is that the blackboard jungle of Scottish education has been reclaimed.

It is now a neatly tended garden full of the blossoming flowers of Scottish young people who are winning award after award for academic excellence.

This is about as true as saying that everyone at West Dunbartonshire Council is happy at their work. Recent absence figures for all council departments show this is far from the case.

The figures indicate that this Labour-controlled council is a bad employer whose culture of overwork and even bullying makes hundreds of people ill.

It’s not something the new Scottish Labour Party with its friendly, feminine face will want on its CV.

The SNP’s powder puff opposition at Garshake is letting them away with it though, so they have nothing to proud of either.

Kezia Dugdale, Labour’s effervescent new leader, is demanding a change of culture, less cronyism and more compassion.

Ms Baillie says: “Our focus for the economy must be forward-looking. We know that the Scotland of tomorrow will not be like the Scotland of today.

“But the one thing we have as our greatest asset for tomorrow is our people – the human capital that can drive economic success.

“If we all agree with that, then this is about what we do to invest in them, to invest in their potential.

“So that means the very best start in life, the best opportunities in school, access to further and higher education and lifelong learning. Education is an economic issue.”

Jackie should tell that to her Labour colleagues on the council who appear to be more interested in their own public profile, building unnecessary schools and creating primary campuses we don’t need or want in Dumbarton and the Vale.

Her comrades on the council are letting her down.

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LEARNING TO DRIVE (2015) 'Clarkson & Kingsley star in lighthearted film'

LEARNING TO DRIVE (2015)

Patricia Clarkson, Ben Kingsley, Jake Weber, Grace Gummer, Sarita Choudhury

Directed by Isabel Coixet

Spanish director Isabel Coixet’s latest film features two fine performances from actors Patricia Clarkson and Ben Kingsley.  Based on an article in The New Yorker by Katha Pollitt, the film doesn’t break any new ground but it’s a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours at the cinema.  

Patricia Clarkson plays Wendy Shields, a New York book critic whose husband, Ted (Jake Weber) just left her for another woman.  Her daughter, Tasha (Grace Gummer), has quit college to work at a farm in Vermont and now Wendy is all alone in her Manhattan apartment, devastated by her husband’s affair. 

On the night that Ted decides to tell Wendy he’s leaving her, the arguing couple step inside a taxi driven by Darwan (Ben Kingsley), a Sikh driving instructor who moonlights as a cab driver.  Later that night he discovers a parcel accidently left behind by Wendy so the next day he stops by Wendy’s apartment to drop off the package.  She notices the driving instructor sign atop his car and decides it’s about time she learned how to drive, that way she could go and visit her daughter in Vermont.

Although Wendy wants to be a licensed driver, she changes her mind, but Darwan asks her to just sit in the driver’s seat.  She reluctantly agrees and before you know it lesson #1 is underway.  At first Darwan is sympathetic towards Wendy’s separation from Ted and how it transpired in the back of his cab, and the two eventually become friends but there is a romance angle to the film that doesn’t quite work.  Clarkson and Kingsley are great together but when he begins to develop feelings for her it just seems rather awkward in the film.  There is also a subplot that involves Darwan entering into an arranged marriage with Jasleen (Sarita Choudhury, who made her acting debut opposite Denzel Washington in Mira Nair’s Mississippi Masala in 1991), a women from his native country that he’s never met, and so that situation also throws off the potential romance between Wendy and Darwan.

The film is beautifully shot and it moves along at a nice casual pace, however there are moments when the film’s tone escalates, usually when Wendy is having a fit of road or ex-husband rage, and when the turban-wearing Darwan becomes the victim of a racism. 

“Learning to Drive” is a lighthearted look at companionship interspersed with some funny moments, plus its enjoyable watching two veterans like Clarkson and Kingsley in a film together.

(3 stars)

Now playing at Santikos Cinema Bijou (San Antonio), River Oaks Theater (Houston), Cinemark at Market Street (Woodlands), and Regal Arbor 8 (Austin).     

 

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Worksop: Man who had never had a driving lesson took Mum’s car and drove to petrol station because he ‘wanted a can of pop’

A court heard how a Worksop man who had ‘never had a driving lesson in his life’ drove his Mum’s car to the next town in the dead of night- because he wanted a can of pop.

Samuel Burton, 25, of Kent Close, Worksop, appeared at Mansfield Magistrates’ Court on Friday September 4.

He pleaded guilty to charges of taking a motor vehicle without the owner’s consent and driving it without a licence or insurance.

In mitigation, the court heard how Burton had seized the opportunity to go for a drive in his Mum’s Nissan at 3:50am while she was asleep on Sunday, August 16.

Burton picked a friend up from the town centre before driving to a petrol station in Retford where he picked up a can of pop.

Police officers spotted the vehicle and pulled Burton over after they checked the registration and discovered that the vehicle was insured to a female.

Representing himself, Burton told magistrates: “I picked my friend up from the town centre and then we drove to the petrol station because I wanted a drink.

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Tuesday marked the first day of a new year for students in Minnesota schools, including those in Albert Lea.

With the start of school means more children are on the roads, either walking or riding their bicycles to school.

Remember to share the roads with school buses, pedestrians and bicyclists, and to teach children proper safety habits.

According to the National Safe Routes to School program, more children are hit by cars near schools than at any other location.

People dropping off children at schools should make sure not to double park as this blocks visibility for other children and vehicles. Don’t load or unload across the street from the school, and consider carpooling to reduce the number of vehicles at the school.

According to research by the National Safety Council, most of the children who lose their lives in bus-related incidents are 4 to 7 years old, and they’re walking. They are hit by the bus, or by a motorist illegally passing a stopped dress.

The National Safety Council suggests people follow the following safety precautions to keep children safe:

• Don’t block crosswalks when stopped at a red light or waiting to make a turn. This could force pedestrians to go around you and in turn put them into the path of moving traffic.

• Stop and yield to pedestrians crossing crosswalks or intersections in school zones.

• Always stop for a school patrol officer or crossing guard holding up a stop sign

• Take extra care to look out for children in school zones, near playgrounds, parks, residential areas.

• Never pass a vehicle stopped for pedestrians.

• If driving behind a bus, allow a greater following distance than if you were driving behind a car.

• Never pass a bus from behind — or from either direction if you’re on an undivided road — if it is stopped to load or unload children.

• Stop for yellow or red flashing lights on a school bus.

• Stop far enough back to allow children space to safely enter and exit a bus.

• Be alert. Children can sometimes be unpredictable.

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