Parents and staff press Flagler County school board for faster fixes to bus safety and ESE training

Parents, a student and school support staff pressed the Flagler County School Board on Aug. 26 to relocate dangerous bus stops, improve training for transportation staff who serve students with exceptionalities, and fix communication gaps that left families without reliable bus information at the start of the school year.

At a public comment session following the board’s regular business, parents described traffic and route changes that they said create immediate safety hazards. “This is not a small concern. It is a preventable tragedy that is waiting to happen,” parent Christie Butler said of a stop on Old Kings Road at Sugar Mill Drive and urged the district to “relocate this stop to inside the neighborhood where the children can safely enter and exit the bus.”

Board members and staff said the transportation department is already working through items discussed during an earlier workshop, and they outlined near-term and longer-term efforts to improve safety and communication. Those items include standard operating procedures, targeted training, technology improvements to provide bus-status updates and year-to-year fixed routes, officials said.

Why it matters: students who rely on buses include children with disabilities and other vulnerable groups; inconsistent routes,…