Bus safety effort continues in state
The state's Division of Elementary and Secondary Education and its partner organizations are continuing a monthlong campaign to remind drivers that it is illegal to pass stopped school buses when their red lights are flashing because that is when students are getting on or off the buses.
The Flashing Red, Kids Ahead campaign is meant to draw attention to the safety needs of some 350,000 students who ride more than 6,000 school buses.
A campaign news event Tuesday in the rotunda of the state Capitol featured Gov. Asa Hutchinson and William Brian, the father of Issac Brian, an elementary pupil in Bryant who was struck and killed in 2004 after he exited a school bus. A subsequent state law referred to as Issac's Law, was passed by Arkansas lawmakers. The law set stiffer penalties for drivers who violate school bus safety laws.
School-day dads photos due soon
The first day of school last Tuesday in the Little Rock School District was marked with the return of the annual "Dads Take Your Child to School Day" photo contest.
Entries in the contest are due by Thursday.
To compete, photos of fathers and their children taken on the first day of classes at the children's schools must be uploaded onto the contest page on the district's Facebook social media account: www.facebook.com/mylrsd.
Winners will be those who receive the most votes from the page viewers. Winning dads will be invited to lunch with Superintendent Mike Poore and are eligible for prizes that feature a "game day" experience with Little Rock district athletic coaches and teams. Among the coaches will be Scotty Thurman, a former University of Arkansas Razorback basketball player and the new basketball coach at Parkview Magnet High School.
The annual contest is intended to promote and celebrate the role that fathers and male role models play in children's educations.
District to show off its new school
The Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District is hosting a community open house Aug. 27 at its new high school building.
The event will be from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the new three-story building at 1301 W. Main St. in Jacksonville.
There will be a brief program in the school's cafeteria, as well as a chamber of commerce ribbon-cutting ceremony.
The new building, which opened to students on Wednesday, replaces a school on Linda Lane that will be demolished in coming weeks.
Haynie filling in for hurt principal
June Haynie, a retired high school principal in the Pulaski County Special School District, is serving as the interim principal at the district's Lawson Elementary School.
Haynie is filling in for Matthew Mellor, 48, the school's full-time leader, who remained at a Pine Bluff hospital Friday afternoon after he and friend Dennis Bradley, 56, were shot Aug. 11 in that city by an unknown assailant.
Bradley told Pine Bluff police that he and Mellor were in Pine Bluff to look at a vehicle that they believed was for sale. The man who they thought would take them to see the car pulled a handgun on them, demanded money, fired several shots and fled. Bradley, who had pulled a gun in response to the shooter's gun, was struck in the hand. Mellor had gunshot wounds in his left and right sides that required surgery Monday, according to police and Pulaski County Special district officials.
Purchase of 5 new buses receives OK
The Pulaski County Special School District School Board on Tuesday approved the purchase of five new buses at a cost of $77,050 each or a total of $385,250.
Charles Blake, the district's director of transportation, told the board that the purchase is intended to be the first step in a multiyear effort to upgrade the aging bus fleet.
"Through our research, we've determined that we need to purchase 12 buses a year, but for now we're only asking for five," Blake told the board. "We have 38 buses that are 15 years or older, and we have 66 buses that are 12 years or older."
The 38 oldest buses exceed the state's call for recycling buses at 12 years or 250,000 miles.
Continuing to run the older buses, Blake said, will result in higher fuel and maintenance costs. The district stands to save money by rotating the older buses out of the fleet.
Replacing 12 buses annually, he said, would require an increase in his budget of $900,000 a year.
The district owns 215 buses, with 142 buses assigned to routes, 69 used as spares and four used for activity trips. The district's 170 bus drivers operate 467 routes daily, running a total of 14,183 miles a day in an area covering 644 square miles.
Twelve of the buses in the fleet, Blake said, have been taken out of service and are scheduled to be auctioned off.
"It's going to cost more to repair them than the value of the buses," he said.
SundayMonday on 08/18/2019