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Brandywine
will realign
its school bus
routes For
the most part, Brandywine
school buses will shun developments and narrow streets during
the coming academic year under a plan revealed at the school
board's monthly meeting.
"We're
going to consolidate [routes] to be fiscally responsible, but
not at the expense of safety," superintendent Mark Holodick
said. He said the new
arrangement will
have the buses mostly stay on main roads
and pick up children at the
entrances of developments. They
will go into large developments,
but the number of stops will be
reduced. In Wilmington they will travel on wider streets.
Holodick said he expects to get complaints as parents receive
notices of where their children will get on and off the bus.
"I'm receptive to their concerns, [but] students are going to
have to walk a little farther," he said. The changes are
necessary, he said, in view of state transportation budget cuts
and the district's experience navigating snow and ice last
winter.
In other matters at the meeting
on Aug. 23, Holodick announced that Mount Pleasant High School
will be one of only two Delaware public schools to receive
federal school-improvement grants. It will get $1.8 million over
four years to implement a consultant's 14 recommendations to
address shortcomings. P.S. du Pont Middle School principal
Lincoln Hohler was named director of the district's 'Race to the
Top' program and assistant principal Lewis Cheatwood was
appointed P.S.'s acting principal. The board approved a new pay
scale for administrators which restores the 1% cut in the
state-financed portion of their salaries last year. Holodick
said that, with the assignment of a city police officer to P.S.,
all secondary schools will have on-site 'resource officers' this
year.
The new wing at Lombardy
Elementary is ready for the new year, meeting an accelerated
construction schedule, and the foundation is complete and walls
are about to go up at the new Brandywood Elementary building. |