CSD Starts a Bus Updates “Blog” on Its Website
Decatur Metro | October 20, 2011
CSD sent out this email last night…
An exciting new feature is available for families that are interested in seeing real-time bus updates. A webpage has been established on the CSD website that will be updated from the field.
A post will be made on this page if a bus is expected to be 15 or more minutes late.
To access: go to http://www.csdecatur.net click on News Room> Bus Updates.
Families that use RSS feeds can include this page in their RSS reader.
Here’s the RSS reader link if you’re lookin’ for it.
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Get pissed off in real-time. Yeah!
Hilarious! :0)
I’m excited that CSD is providing this option for communication. I’m not sure I understand it but hopefully my children can explain it!
Progress.. now if we can just teach the transportation director to return phone calls.
Maybe someone needs to assist her in the busy times. I think she’s not just the director, but also the only staff besides the bus drivers. E.g., if a bus breaks down in the afternoon, it might be hard to be communicating with two or more bus drivers, the school from which the students on board were picked up, the next school where students are waiting to be picked up, DeKalb County to send out another bus, and Decatur police to deal with the traffic situation. It would be helpful if someone else stepped in to handle the phone calls from parents who are understandably anxious if it’s 45 minutes after when they expected their child to show up.
Or maybe the parents could calm down a little bit, knowing that in a town this size, if something catastrophic had occurred, they would have heard about it? On the one hand, we all yammer for CSD to spend every available nickel on direct educational expenses instead of administrative costs, and on the other, there’s supposed to be someone available to “step in” and handle unexpected spates of phone calls from anxious parenst?…Can we really have it both ways?….Just sayin’…
That’s an appropriate response for 8-18 year olds, not 4-7 year olds. It’s not just the parents who are worried when their young one is delayed, but the children often are too. It was real hard to get my child back on the bus the one time that she took the wrong bus at age 6.
Are you kidding me? the person whose sole job is to make sure that our kids make it to and from school in a small little community needs an assistant to communicate.
[edited: no personal attacks]
Awww dude…. it’s much more fun when you just change your name for every CSD post.
Does it make you feel better when I use my real name?
Still doesn’t change the facts behind what I’m writing.
Rob/Frustrated/ Really, etc.- Call yourself whatever you’d like. It’s not the name that matters (except in the case of Karass because she IS Karass!). It’s what and how something gets said. Maybe you do share facts. Unfortunately, because you’re usually so irate, it’s hard to “hear” what you’re trying to say. Not discounting your concerns. Just sayin’ that being more thoughtful about how you express them will get you further.
Point taken
I’m not talking about hysterical calls b/c a kid’s bus is late. I’m talking about general calls to inquire about general procedures for bus service never, ever being returned…. not that day… not the next… not a week later… never.
Wouldn’t it be easier and more effective to tweet?
Since negative experiences shared in the Comments section can perhaps result in a skewed perspective of reality, let me just say that our family has been very pleased with our bus riding experience. While we have had four schedule changes (and almost as many drivers) in these first couple of months, in all cases we have never had problems with timing. Sure, sometimes we have to wait a few minutes longer because of traffic, trains and what not, but a handful of times we have actually found the bus waiting for us because the driver had admittedly arrived a bit early. Now if only the central office would return messages a little more quickly
So my kid’s bus has been scheduled all year for an 8:04 pickup. Bus Never comes at 8:04. Often, 7:58 or 8:00, some days 8:10.
Today, we were there at 7:55, as we are most days, and we watched the bus drive away in the distance. And we walked home and got in the car.
This is one time I could understand the use of Twitter (or phone tree auto-dialer). We parents deserve to be notified when a breakdown will delay kids’ pickup or dropoff. There is very little time or effort required to tweet this info, which would enable us to make other arrangements if necessary. A web posting is only useful for static messages, like route changes.
I agree that using a robo call would work just as well. I have not used RSS before and it took over an hour for me to find a free app for my old blackberry, get it downloaded, and figure out it all out. But I managed. Hard to teach the old dog new tricks
Evidently folks have requested that CSD NOT use robo calls. Some folks want them used for emergencies only.
Older children with phone, like my daughter, don’t really worry me so much. I can communicate with her and know she is safe. My son on the other hand who is too young for a phone and has special needs worry the heck out me when he’s late coming home. Every minute counts when a child is truly missing. Just sayin’…
Wish there was a delete button. Didn’t mean to be snippy, ruff day. Sorry.