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Flagstaff Unified School District’s (FUSD) board heard an update on district transportation during its Dec. 12 meeting that focused on eligibility changes announced to families last week.

Mountain Line, the city’s public transit system, is continuing to work with the district on family information sessions and other ways to make sure students taking public transit to school for the first time are able to do so successfully.

The last two sessions will take place on Dec. 19 at Flagstaff High School from 7:30 to 9 a.m. and on Jan. 2 at the district office form 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. The district has said families are welcome to attend whichever sessions best fit their schedule.

Mountain Line is also encouraging families to call 928-779-6624 if they have questions or need assistance as a result of the eligibility changes.

Parental concerns

Two parents made public comments at FUSD’s board meeting Tuesday, expressing concerns about the decision to reduce bus eligibility.

Nicole Lyons said she was concerned about her 14-year-old daughter’s safety, as well as the logistical aspects of making sure she arrived at school on time.

“I do not feel it’s best for her or any of the children to be riding public transportation,� she said. “Part of the safety with the school bus is the video monitoring, but also that you are with kids of your same age. I have concerns with my daughter riding with access to the general public.�

Lyons, who is a single mom, said she worked two part-time jobs in addition to her full-time position, and her daughter’s school is 3 1/2 miles from their home.

“We have to be three places in the morning,� she said. “I don’t know how that’s doable and I know many of us will struggle with the same. This will put additional cars on the road, in the middle of the school year, in the middle of the winter. I do hope an alternative solution can be found.�

Another commenter, Travis Smith, questioned the timing of this announcement, saying the district’s buses had been crowded for years.

“You guys have known about this issue for quite some time,� he told the board. “These kids have been packed like sardines in these buses for a while and just recently this issue comes up and all of a sudden you can’t put as many kids on the bus?�

Smith asked for more information on how the changes affected students and families, particularly those in households with lower incomes or single parents. He also mentioned the potential traffic impacts that could come if every affected family began driving their kids to school instead.

“These problems have been around for a while and now you’re pushing the burden of responsibility onto the parents,� he said. “There are going to be a lot of parents that are going to have to make a lot of sacrifices and changes just to get these kids to school.�

He added: “It shouldn’t be expected that the parents drop these kids off every time, because that’s one of the attractions of public school. I wonder how many kids you guys are going to lose because of this decision.�

Mountain Line preparations

While Mountain Line CEO Heather Dalmolin said the transit provider is also continuing to experience a shortage of drivers, she said she is not concerned about capacity on its buses with the addition of FUSD students.

Hundreds of Flagstaff students already take Mountain Line buses to school, she said, including those from charter schools such as BASIS Flagstaff, Flagstaff Arts and Leadership Academy, and the Montessori School of Flagstaff.

“If someone were to ride one of our routes in the morning or afternoon, they’re likely to see many K-12 students riding the Mountain Line transit system to or from school,� she said, noting that 400 annual and semester passes were currently in circulation in addition to those students buying day passes.

Dalmolin did not know how many students affected by this change had already requested bus passes, as the district will be purchasing them together. She did say, however, that Mountain Line had made assessments to ensure it had enough capacity should all 600 students affected by this change decide to use their buses instead.

Mountain Line is not currently planning to make changes to its routes in response to FUSD’s changed eligibility, although both agencies have said they plan to evaluate the effects throughout the spring semester and make additional adjustments as needed.

“We really feel like we have available space for students to choose Mountain Line service as a result of this,� Dalmolin said. “We will obviously evaluate that as we see a demand, what we need to do to adjust our existing services to accommodate that capacity. But we don’t have a specific concern at this time.�

Mountain Line has bus stops “near� each of the affected schools, she said, though “close is probably too strong of a word.�

The nearest stop to Sinagua Middle School is behind the school on Sparrow Avenue, and it is also used by students at Northland Preparatory Academy. Students taking Mountain Line buses to Flagstaff High School are recommended to use the Beaver Avenue bus stop by the hospital � which Dalmolin said has safer crosswalks across Humphreys Street.

Mount Elden Middle School and Coconino High School are both served by two bus routes, she said. What is unknown is how close bus stops are to these students� homes.

“We know some of them will be challenged by greater walking distance than others,� she said. � ... If you don’t live closer to a bus stop from a walking-distance perspective, we’re encouraging people to consider driving students to bus stops or the connection center versus all the way to school, because we’re very conscious of the traffic congestion problem in Flagstaff near and around schools.�

In response to concerns about winter weather affecting students on public transit, Dalmolin said FUSD tended to cancel or delay school more often than Mountain Line did its routes.

“Our goal is to operate on time and be available for our full schedule,� she said. “There have been times we’ve stopped the routes that are impacted because of snow removal or lack of cinders in a location, but for the most part, we operate our service as scheduled throughout the winter hours, regardless of conditions. So we anticipate to be available to parents no matter if their school starts on time or is delayed.�

She also responded to concerns about safety on Mountain Line buses, saying it is a “top priority� for the transit provider. There are cameras on its buses that can livestream video and an app to report incidents in addition to assistance from bus drivers.

“Mountain Line puts safety as our top priority,� she said. “We have a lot of mechanisms in place to promote that culture of safety for our riders as well as our employees, and we want parents to know we take that responsibility very seriously.�

In addition to the information sessions it is hosting at FUSD sites, Dalmolin said Mountain Line is encouraging affected families considering switching to public transit to ask questions and take sample trips to make sure their students are ready after winter break.

“We know practice and the ability to see what the trip looks like will help everyone feel more comfortable with that trip,� she said. � ... If this is something you’re considering for your student, reach out, let us know, let us help you experience that trip in practice format before it’s the first day of school and all the go-back-to-school things are occurring and now you’re faced with an unknown trip on a Mountain Line bus as well.�

She added: “We want to be a part of the community’s solution to transit. Our goal is to get you where you want to go, no matter what rider you are: a student, a senior, an employee, a person headed to the hospital for medical care, whatever it is. We feel we are part of the transportation solution for this community, and this is just another step to being that solution.�

Ongoing shortage

Mountain Line has been affected by the same bus driver shortage that FUSD is facing. In November, it announced a reduction in service that Dalmolin said is expected to continue through August 2024, when it hopes to return to full service on all routes.

“We’ve had these challenges for several years now, so we just continue to focus on recruitment strategies. Where do we recruit and who do we recruit and how do we make our job attractive?� she said. “We are hopeful that we are able to recruit the drivers we need to to put that service back in place for our communities.�

When discussing the shortage in September, Dalmolin had said the transit provider needed between 10 and 15 more drivers for full staffing. This past week, she said the same number of drivers are still needed, as new hires are often balanced out by other employees leaving. This is frequently due to Flagstaff’s high cost of living, she said.

A CDL training course meant to help train additional drivers is “almost 100% complete,� she said, though its opening has been delayed by an unexpected issue with power lines on the site.

The first class using that course is expected to graduate this summer, according to Dalmolin.

District transportation updates

FUSD Superintendent Michael Penca’s presentation to the board Tuesday a week ago explained the previously announced changes to the board members, alongside an update on the current state of transportation in the district.

The two things that have most affected FUSD’s transportation services in recent years, he said, were a driver shortage and operating costs that exceed state funding.

After the presentation, Penca and other district administrators answered questions from the board.

Member Kristine Pavlik asked about Mountain Line’s capacity to transport these students and how winter weather could affect high-schoolers taking public transit to school. She asked the district to consider calling delayed starts specifically for high school students who have an earlier start time than those in elementary schools.

“As part of this committee, it’s a really hard decision and I understand how intensely it impacts so many families,� she added. “If I could fix anything, this is one thing I would fix and make possible for us. � I also want to make sure everyone knows this committee is going to continue to look at how we can improve our transportation. It’s not like we’re just giving up.�

Penca said the district’s calendar committee had been considering “flipping the elementary and secondary� start and dismissal times. In response to a question from member Eric Sather, he also said FUSD was planning to develop a communication plan with Mountain Line, and would not count students tardy if their bus to school was delayed, regardless of whether that bus was operated by the district.

Member Carole Gilmore asked whether students living in Mormon Lake were now eligible for district transportation, because they met the district’s new eligibility requirements. Several parents had come to an FUSD meeting earlier in the semester to request the district bring a bus route back to their area after theirs had ended in August’s consolidation.

“Possibly, as we are able,� Penca said. “I don’t want to promise that in a public meeting, but as we look to redo the routes, we may be able to expand some of those rural routes that we had to cut back on at the beginning of the year.�

He added: “We hear from families about safety concerns, the time students are on our buses, and some of these changes may allow us to have more efficient, shorter routes. Obviously, there’s going to be less students on those secondary buses as well, so it may improve some of the things that we’ve heard as concerns as well.�

In a later item during the meeting, the board approved the purchase of two 14-passenger buses and two 84-passenger buses using about $757,000 in funds from a 2018 bond. The new buses will be used to replace district buses “with exceeding mileage� and the 14-passenger buses were specifically mentioned as an effort to resume service to Mormon Lake.

Transportation costs

This portion of the meeting also included discussion of FUSD’s transportation budget, and whether there was a way to increase funding.

According to a transportation update given to the board in August, the district had exceeded its revenue control limit for transportation by about $1.75 million in fiscal year 2023 after also having done so to a lesser extent in 2020 and 2022. The limit is set by the state and has been the same total of about $5.8 million since 2020 � a grandfathered-in higher total than FUSD would receive using current calculations.

During the meeting, Ginger Stevens, FUSD’s director of finance and business services, again said this limit comes from state calculations that are applied to districts across Arizona. The district’s calculations are also reviewed by the Coconino County Education Service Agency and Coconino County’s treasurer’s office, she said.

“This isn’t something the district comes up with on its own,� she said. “Every school district is calculated the exact same way.�

Penca also said at the end of fiscal year 2023, FUSD’s transportation expenses were about $2 million more than the state funding allocated. This comes from shortage-related costs, such as hiring charter services for out-of-city trips, he said, alongside increases to Flagstaff’s minimum wage and the cost of fuel and repairs.

“It’s costing us about $7.8 million, almost $8 million a year to operate transportation services as we get $5.8 million from the state,� he said. “And so that impacts our M&O budget, any reserves, any other funds we might want to be able to give to our employees or invest in capital improvements, if we’re always going to be running $2 million in the red.�

There was also some discussion of working conditions for drivers.

The district’s pay for drivers is $6 to $7 higher an hour than other schools across the state, human resources director Dawn Anderson said, mainly because of Flagstaff’s higher minimum wage. On average, she said, drivers stay with FUSD between five and 10 years.

Based on exit interviews, Anderson said, most drivers leaving the district for compensation-related reasons were leaving Flagstaff because of its cost of living, adding FUSD had been raising driver pay in addition to adjustments related to the minimum wage increase.

Pavlik asked for more information about how close city bus stops were to students� homes compared to FUSD’s bus stops.

“If we’re not asking kids to walk more than 2 miles to a school or to one of our bus stops, I worry about asking them to walk to a city bus stop more than 2 miles [away],� she said.

Gilmore asked that the district continue providing detailed updates to families as the eligibility changes went into effect.

“I think it would be very helpful for you � it becomes something that’s fairly regular for the public to have additional information on how effective it is, or perhaps see � [if they] would like to bring things forward, may come up with real solutions for us,� she said.

A recording of the meeting is available at , with the transportation update beginning at around an hour and 50 minutes.