District 15 Anti-union Political Games Now Threaten Child Safety

The efforts of some officials and board members in District 15 to eliminate the in-house bus drivers and their union have recently taken a turn from petty political gamesmanship to being outright dangerous. The danger is real and it is to our children here in the district.

Yesterday, a D15 bus was involved in a hit and run accident, as reported here in the Patch. Fortunately, no one was hurt – although the car involved incurred some damage. We learned today that the bus driver was a new hire by the district. This driver’s only previous experience had been with a private company. This is important because of the ongoing ardent efforts of board president Tim Millar to outsource transportation to just such a private company.

Even more flagrantly irresponsible was the decision by the district to essentially abort this new driver’s training and put him immediately out on the streets. The bus driver involved in this incident apparently did not know the policies that applied. Of course, no one had ever trained him in those.  We’ve now come to find out he was involved in another accident last week.

There is a long standing relationship between the board and the DTU which has produced an award winning transportation department. The quality of this department is directly tied to the standards championed by the union – in driver qualification, training, and yes … compensation. Recently, we’ve seen the district begin to disregard these standards, apparently in anticipation of a move away from in-house, union drivers.

Some very disturbing things have come to my attention, as a resident, taxpayer, and parent in district 15. I’ve been told that a new person is now doing the hiring. The candidates favored now are not screened as thoroughly - and any private company experience however sparse is now deemed adequate. The rumor is that the district now wants to cut corners and avoid putting in the significant training necessary for a driver to acquire a Commercial Drivers’ License (CDL). So they are hiring drivers with minimal private-company experience to avoid taking on that training. Apparently, they’ve decided that this also positions them to avoid much of any training at all.

In the only contribution that the district has made to DTU negotiations, they provided a copy of the current union contract with 90% of its entire content crossed out. They removed sections covering training and probation. They even crossed out the union’s stated core belief in the primary importance of children’s’ well-being.

Board President Tim Millar has led the charge to decimate and eliminate the drivers’ union. Tom Bramley (Director of Transportation) and Scott Thompson (District 15 Superintendent) were both involved in political damage control around the incident on Monday. How involved have these people been in decisions that erode our safety standards? How many more surprises can we expect?  The residents, taxpayers and parents of District 15 deserve answers and explanations from the people responsible for our children’s safety. It appears these same people are now, increasingly, responsible for decisions that endanger our children.