Committee recommends renewal

Most nights, committee meetings for the Acadia Parish School Board clock-in under an hour in total. That was not the case Wednesday night.
After spending roughly half-an-hour with the Personnel/Insurance/Curriculum Committee’s reports and items, focus turned to the Budget/Finance Committee and an item that has been a matter of, at times, contentious discussions for three meetings prior – the renewal of the board’s contract with Student Transportation Specialists, LLC, based out of McKinney, Texas.
In 2012, the board contracted STS to run the bus operations on a day to day basis, and the changes have been obvious, but the issues that have lingered have been as well.
“Transportation, although it may seem to be a short term proposition, most of what [STS does] has longterm consequences,” said Jeff Polzien, STS owner.
In terms of the argument of one year versus three years for renewal, Plozien urged the board to bet on STS for three years and give STS the chance to return that investment in the community through its product, that begins with a proposed new location for STS’s offices, consolidating maintenance and office under one roof, aiding in the communication issues and providing STS the chance to service more people at any given time.
“We have a property located and have negotiated a deal with the landlord, but it is a three year deal – with the modifications the landlord has to make to the facility, he is not willing to do anything less than a three year deal,” he said.
“We would be able to increase our service to Acadia Parish. This locations gives us the ability to have six to eight buses in the shop at any given time and has much more parking where we can keep more buses closer to the central office.”
Polzien added that the location would also provide them the chance to create a large meeting and training room allowing for larger groups to be trained at one time as well as a washroom for the buses to help keep them cleaner.
Another project he mentioned would be the replacement upgrade of the buses’ camera systems – a four- to six-year asset.
He also pointed to the board’s contractual recourse should they feel that STS is not living up to its end of the contract. The recourse, standardly written into STS’s contracts according to Polzien, provides the school district the opportunity to provide notice to STS of any shortcomings or contractual violations, which STS has 30 days to correct and comply with or the board can terminate STS’s services within 10 days.
Polzien, along with the corporate office’s Director of Safety Gilbert Villa have had several frank discussions with Acadia Parish Superintendent John Bourque about the state of current affairs in the parish, those conversations have definitely been centered on those issues the board has presented in recent weeks.
But all of that came to a head at the Wednesday meeting when board members and STS managers had a chance to really speak, which they did, for over an hour.
“We have an office that is very effective as far as operations,” he said. “I do think we have, possibly, what I will call ‘P.R.’ issues in the office that we are addressing.
“We sometimes do not portray the right image and we are working on that.”
Polzien and Villa also were accompanied by Joey Simon, transportation manager for STS in Acadia Parish, and a 35-year veteran of bus driving in the parish with Clint Perrodin.
It was perhaps the words of Rev. James Proctor, who only recently joined the board that proved to provide a different, much needed perspective.
“I don’t have any experience in this particular program,” said Proctor. “I’m aware that nobody likes change, but a wet baby. This change seems to have been a good change, from my perspective.
“The other part of it is, I don’t think we have an alternative solution at this point, something else to put in place of (STS).”
That would lead Proctor to move that the committee recommend favorably the renewal of a contract with STS for three years. Committee member David Lalande would second the motion.
The committee – comprised of School Board President Doug LaCombe, Committee Chair John Suire and board members Proctor, James Higginbotham and Lalande – would eventually move to recommend a three-year contract renewal and favorably vote for that motion, but the road there was bumpy, to say the least.
Before the vote, as board members LaCombe and Milton Simar voiced concerns they had heard over time from other people – as they had for several weeks prior, Lalande pushed for more specific examples Wednesday night.
“What problems are you talking about?” asked Lalande. “I really want to know, because I’ve been sitting here for only two-and-a-half years, but there’s been no problem until it came time for renewal.”
Simar and LaCombe then began divulging some of those issues in greater detail, pointing to underlying problems of communication, combative relationships between school board-hired bus drivers and STS-hired bus drivers and the front office issues that have lingered all three years – all themes that would be echoed throughout the night. Board members also voiced concerns over how it had been misled in the past.
Higginbotham and Gene Daigle explained that principals they had spoken to were angry over the calls they received when students missed buses after not being able to contact STS.
“There are six schools in Mr. Daigle and I’s district – and all six of them I spoke with them yesterday – and they have been calling since school started trying to get rosters,” said Higginbotham. “A parent calls the principal to see which bus a kid is on and they can’t tell them because they don’t know. When they call [STS], they can’t get in touch with you or anybody...”
Simon would interrupt and explain that parents should call STS not the principals, but Higginbotham continued to explain that parents, unable to get in touch with STS, have resorted to calling schools.
Discussion would not end there as tensions continued to swirl and board members would call into question STS’s actions in Acadia Parish’s front office including inappropriate language via the buses’ radios from that front office.
Those rumors were quashed by Simon and Perrodin, both stating they had never heard such language on their radios.
“That is not true,” Simon replied. “I will terminate somebody if I hear something like that.”
Polzien, Bourque and Simon all stressed the importance of timely reporting of issues.
The issues with communication once again were on display and Simon explained that those problems were being and will continue to be proactively addressed, but he added later that those “rosters” were presented to the principal, in some fashion, at the beginning of the year. In fact, Executive Director of Personnel / Operations Ellan Kay Baggett explained she herself handed them out at that first principals' meeting.
For proponents of the three-year renewal like Lalande and Bourque, there was one glaring statistic and fact the two kept harping on: safety.
As time waned on, the topic seemed to drift farther and farther from the major issues and more toward smaller, sour grapes. Finally, LaCombe called for discussion to end and the committee agreed to not only end discussion but favorably recommend the contract’s renewal.
The board will officially vote on the matter Monday, June 1, at its regular board meeting.