DATE: Saturday, September 13, 1997          TAG: 9709130318

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: SUFFOLK                           LENGTH:   87 lines

SCHOOL BUS CONFUSION HAS PARENTS REVVED UP SUFFOLK IS SCRAMBLING TO MAKE BUSES LESS CROWDED, LESS LATE.

The wheels on the bus go 'round and 'round - and 'round and 'round and 'round, driving some frustrated parents to spit fire.

Erratic schedules, three and four students per school bus seat and late-running afternoon runs in the first weeks of this school year have caused a flood of complaints from students and their irate parents - when they can get through busy phone lines to school officials.

Guilty as charged, school people say. There were bugs in a new computer routing program; an attempt at splitting up middle- and high-schoolers didn't quite work; and some neighborhoods produced more schoolchildren than expected. And they could use more bus drivers.

But things will be better - much better - by Monday, pledged Janice B. Holland, newly promoted to assistant superintendent and into the middle of handling the school bus mess. Transportation Supervisor Larry E. Garland said that well over 10,000 of Suffolk's almost 11,000 students ride buses in this, Virginia's largest city in area at 430 square miles.

Monday won't come soon enough for Cindy Baker. Her fourth-grade son at Elephant's Fork Elementary School has ridden four different buses so far, she said this week. She began driving him to school in the mornings because the bus kept arriving at different times.

The boy's been getting home at 4:30 p.m. - 75 minutes after school lets out. And they live in Burnetts Mill, a mile or two away across Virginia Route 10.

``I don't know what bus my child rides,'' Baker said. ``If I was a stay-at-home mom, I'd definitely pick him up.''

The daughter of Elaine Stewart, who also lives in Burnetts Mill, was getting home earlier by the end of the second week of school - around 4:10 p.m. But the girl's bus has been crammed.

``My daughter said she had somebody sitting on her lap,'' Stewart said. ``She's only in the third grade, and she's not very big.

``There's no call for it. An hour's a long time - what if they have to go to the bathroom?''

It's been far different from last year, parents said. Complaining calls made their way to School Board members, who questioned the superintendent at their meeting Thursday night.

Superintendent Joyce H. Trump said her staff tried to change bus routes during the summer, including separating middle- and high-schoolers, to make better use of limited resources as enrollment grows. Forest Glen Middle School saw 32 buses each day last year, but just 11 under the new plan at the start of this year, easing traffic congestion at the school.

``If you grow, you've got to do something,'' Trump said.

Unfortunately, it didn't work, Trump and Holland agreed.

This was especially so in the spread-out sections of the city to the south and west. So Lakeland High, Forest Glen Middle and Southwestern Elementary schools got new bus routes Thursday morning. Forest Glen now sees about 16 buses.

Holland said school administrators continue to fiddle with the computer routing system, which doesn't take into account Suffolk's wide-open spaces. Late first runs for secondary students cause late second runs for elementary students.

Also, some of the problems were realized after the bus schedules were printed in the newspaper, so handwritten numbers were placed in bus windows, different from the ones painted on the buses. More confusion, Holland said.

Holland moved from her central administration office into the transportation department for a week, answering call after call, responding to 40 parents a night.

``I would say, by Monday, 98 percent of all the problems will be solved,'' she said.

``As with most new things, you have to work out the bugs.''

Not all the problems were bug-related, Trump and Holland said. Growing Suffolk doesn't have enough qualified bus drivers.

The school system's regular drivers and all of its 10 to 12 substitutes have kept the 120 to 130 buses on the road, and the substitutes will probably be hired full-time by the end of the month, Holland said. Mechanics, Transportation Supervisor Garland, even school principals are driving buses.

``We have used every available person who can legally do it,'' Holland said.

Garland said the school system could use five more full-timers immediately, and 20 to 25 qualified substitutes. Only five new drivers are in training. The school system has seven spare buses, plus 10 new ones on order, although some older buses will be retired when the new ones arrive.

``I make a public plea of this: We need bus drivers,'' Trump said. ``We really are in desperate need of bus drivers.'' ILLUSTRATION: Graphic

DRIVERS WANTED

Interested in driving a school bus? Call Suffolk Public Schools at

925-5500.

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