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North Providence committee authorizes staff to explore minor bell-time tweaks to improve bus efficiency
Summary
The North Providence School Committee voted to empower staff to pursue possible small adjustments to school start and end times (roughly 5—15 minutes) and to run transportation-routing simulations with vendor Durham, subject to bargaining with the teachers—ontract if changes are recommended.
The North Providence School Committee voted April 29 to authorize district staff to pursue potential small adjustments to school start and end times and to ask transportation vendor Durham to run GPS-based routing simulations.
Superintendent Goho told the committee the district received a preliminary efficiency review from Transpar that identified possible opportunities to improve student-transportation efficiency. He said recommended changes, if any, would likely be minor — in the range of 5 to 15 minutes — and would require running simulations and, if recommended, bargaining with the teachers—ontract because start and end times are contractually specified.
"There could be no changes at all," Goho said, "but Transpar has recommended that we engage our transportation company Durham nd ask them to run some simulations using their GPS software to see if any modification in the range that I talked about 5 to 15 minutes t the middle school level potentially at the elementary school level—ould provide any meaningful opportunities to improve efficiency." (Superintendent Goho)
Why it matters: The committee framed the item as an operational efficiency measure intended to reduce waste and improve routing for students and families. Any recommended schedule changes would require formal negotiation with the teachers union and advance family notification; the committee approved moving forward so staff will not have to wait for a future meeting to begin the technical work.
What happened at the meeting: After the superintendent—xplained the Transpar report and the planned Durham simulations, a motion to empower staff to pursue the work passed. The motion carried with one member recorded as opposed; the roll-call names and exact tallies were not recorded in the meeting transcript.
Next steps: Durham will run the GPS simulations and report findings to district staff. If results suggest changes, district administrators said they would engage the teachers union and notify families before any formal schedule change is adopted.
