Kenston Local board hears parent plea over long routes, approves routine finance and personnel items

The Kenston Local School Board on Aug. 11 approved a slate of routine financial and personnel items and heard a detailed transportation update while a parent urged the district to revise transport for students attending Lawrence School.

The meeting opened with roll call and the Pledge of Allegiance, then moved into department updates. Chris Elmer, the district’s transportation director, described route counts for the coming year — nine high-school, 12 middle-school and 22 elementary routes — and outlined two new technologies intended to improve safety and tracking: the StopFinder app for parents and a Wayfinder system on buses. "StopFinder is an app that parents can put on their phone so that they can see where their student's bus is," Elmer said. She said Wayfinder will place tablets on buses and issue swipe cards to students; the district will start Wayfinder on seven buses to train drivers and expand from there.

Elmer also warned the board that she learned late about several planned road closures affecting routes. She said Bainbridge Road would be closed for about 46 days and Haskins Road for roughly 21 days, and that the district was rerouting buses and planning earlier pickups — about…