A long line of parents in cars snaked down Rabbit Creek Road, as families tried to get their children to Goldenview Middle School on Friday. On Facebook, drone footage showed long lines of cars idling and inching along Lake Otis Road and Abbott Loop, waiting for their turn to drop schoolchildren off near the front door of elementary schools in the area. Parents reported waiting in line for 45 minutes, unable to report to work because they were stuck in school traffic. It’s a breakdown in the social infrastructure of Anchorage — people not able to get to work and children not able to get to school.
Anchorage School Superintendent Jharrett Bryantt on Friday cautioned parents to be careful what they post on social media, as much misinformation is being passed along about the lack of transportation for Anchorage schoolchildren.
Things will improve, Bryantt said in his note.
“It’s always a huge challenge to start a school year as smoothly as possible. For you, it was even more challenging given the circumstances these last four weeks or so. I am very proud of our community’s resilience. How ALL of you stepped up, in the spirit of partnership, to help was nothing short of amazing! Our schools are full and feel alive again! Our students and staff arrived and departed schools safely! I saw it myself as I visited multiple schools yesterday. THANK YOU!,” Bryantt wrote.
“With that said, we still have much work to do to get us back to full bus service. There are many things we learned yesterday that worked and didn’t work. We are constantly reviewing all the information, including your feedback, and making the needed improvements,” he said.
“We are excited to tell you four more drivers are hitting the street next week. It brings the total number of new bus drivers to seven. This is fantastic news! Please know new drivers are added to the rotating bus routes according to our route reinstatement priorities, which include safety, student needs, and efficiency. Once a route is reinstated, our transportation team contacts families directly as quickly as possible. Families are our priority. Hang in there,” Jarrett wrote.
“There is much misinformation being posted on social media. Please be mindful of what you share and/or believe. Our bus transportation webpage is the best source of information. Please continue to check it daily. The FAQ page is a great resource! If you have any questions or feedback, please contact your individual school. They are always happy to help,” he wrote.
Late last week the district reached out to the Alaska National Guard for help driving children to school, but that effort failed.
If you are interested in becoming a bus driver or bus driver attendant, click here. But drivers for the Anchorage School District make $20.68 per hour. These are temporary positions and hours vary. The district needs more than 60 new bus drivers to be at full capacity.
What an absolute disgrace of a superintendent. No district in the country would hire this clown, so ASD rolled the red carpet out for him. Absolute failure from day one. I place full blame on the disinterested “voters” of the peoples republic of Anchorage who either couldn’t be bothered to vote in the last election, or threw in their lot with the marxists who were up for election. There were fantastic alternatives to the status quo, yet we once again had a voter turnout of less than 30%. I hope this resonates with every mom and dad who voted status quo, or couldn’t be bothered to vote this wretched school board out, who has to sit in a 45 minute or more queue to drop their kids off at school. Get off your collective butts and vote these commies out! The only upside to this situation is that your precious kids will spend less time being indoctrinated since they will be late for first bell.
Dominion Computing machine’s are selecting the election candidates…not the people…hand count all ballots, end ERIC on line voting registry’s, stop all mail in voting with few very few exceptions, stop all drop boxes, etc. Mat-SunAssembly is going to vote on getting the machines out of the valley on Sept 7, 2022!
Mat-su Election Fraud Assembly testimony August 17, 2022 starts at 1:28.30 time on video/link below.
‘http://matanuska.granicus.com/player/clip/313?view_id=1&redirect=true&h=9165aba8721321db453c3f6da0c5efa3
Hey you! New superintendent.
You have no kids! Parents are watching you!
So now the School bureaucrat is telling people – the effected community what to believe, say and share. ok.
What makes the ‘super’- think he knows who we are as a community? He been here less than 6 months. Alaskans aren’t resilient. That’s a special trait, we haven’t learned, yet,as a whole. We are tolerant until the pain is too much before the fear or pain is too much to bear then! we cry, bemoan, complain, curse and throw tantrum(protest).
You know what resilience in this situation looks like!? Parking car somewhere a block or 2 away, running up the street w/ child dropping the child off, then running back the 2 blocks to car, and still getting to work on-time. That’s an example of resilience! Not sitting in a car complaining for 45 mins. Furthermore, the schools have crossing guard, noon duty, staff, teacher who by organization can meet the children and escort the children to school by organized groups, and the drivers won’t even need to enter the parking lot.
Well Jen, that might work in an urban setting but as you can see from the video, at many of our schools, i.e. Service, South, Bear Valley, etc., there are no alternate places to stop and drop off your kids and have them safely walk a couple of blocks to school. These schools are only accessible by busy roads and not near any other parking areas. They are also not safely accessible by bikes for many of their students as their districts are huge, especially on the Hillside. And FYI there are NO crossing guards anywhere in this neck of the woods, not even for elementary schools.
What “misinformation” is being spread? Is he saying that parents sharing their personal experiences of waiting 45 mins in traffic line to drop off their own child is “misinformation”? What a joke! First day of school and this guy has already shown that hiring this Dr. Unqualified Candidate was a HUGE mistake made by our woke school board.
It is misinformation because it is critical of a leftist.
They could train all those homeless folks that they say are just down on their luck and not really just drug addicts and drunks. I hear all the time that families and people who just need a hand up need jobs.
Good point. I see 60 opportunities for a hand up. Surely we can somehow bend the licensure, qualification, and experience rules in these cases. We did it for the superintendent.
A total of 7 bus drivers when 60 are needed, I wouldn’t call that exciting. All the left talks about is misinformation and Equity. Instead of being Equity driven as he stated in an article, I suggest the Superintendent be forward driven and get 53 drivers so all students who need to be bused to school get there safely Are you kidding me less than 21$ to drive and put up with they have to. i would say start at 35$ and you may have some takers.
But, if they start paying the drivers $35, the administrators and vice/principals might not get as large of a bonus for doing nothing.
Exactly!
CBMTTek, actually it is worse than that. It appears that school bus drivers are listed as “temporary” positions, which most likely means no benefits, no bargaining unit and no long-term job stability. By being cheap and sneaky the district is cutting of its nose to spite its face. But apparently we can afford a superintendent and a minder for said superintendent, instead of paying fair wages to the folks actually out there doing the job instead of pushing paper and accusing parents of spreading lies.
At this rate it will take only 10 more weeks to get back to normal
Parents posting about long lines and long waiting times to drop off and pick up their kids is disinformation?
“There is much misinformation being posted on social media”
any idea what this Texan is on about with his buzz words?
also why did the school board feel the need to hire an unqualified Texan? Couldn’t they have at least found a local unqualified person to head ASD just as easy and at a lower cost?
When you elect and re-elect Bolsheviks to the school board, you get Soviet style inefficiency.
This is an ongoing self inflicted wound, Anchorage.
Notice how the Superintendent immediately went for the “M” words, misinformation and mindful? Lefties always use those words to suppress or contain any criticism of their disastrous administration of public programs.
Authoritarian organizations don’t like to be questioned and exposing the truth about their failures is misinformation. Got it?
Good!
Now shut the hell up, get in line and wait for further instructions.
I find it interesting that folks now are in an uproar over the school districts mismanagement of bus service and yet these same parents were largely silent about the dismal level of education services that the ASD has been delivering for decades.
Paying attention yet?
Like most employees in the public education racket this new school superintendent hasn’t a clue about running a business!
This little dweeb just arrived Alaska and he’s already barking out orders. Wait til the first snow arrives. Where do we find these little mutts?
They scoured the Country to find someone with just the right hairdo.
…….or sexual preference. And we all know what that is.
It’d be interesting to look over the ASD school board minutes to see how much attention they paid to the bus driver shortage vs CRT & LGBT issues over the last few months.
We have a real pattern of failure with these leftist/Democrats. They do nothing until a crisis arrives and then it’s always someone else’s fault and they’re laser focused to fix it. They should have known in June or July they were short of drivers and made plans accordingly. But, that would require work and being proactive.
Isn’t he getting all the handholding (mentoring) for two years by a person that holds a current Alaska Superintendent certificate (also being paid by our property taxes) to be advised on how to properly do his job? This mentoring is due to the fact he does not have the necessary years of teaching experience or full AK Superintendent certificate called for in the job description of ASD Superintendent? This is what we get from the School Board that hires a Texan “Human Resource Officer” for this position.
Texans are ONLY smart in Texas.
This is a Texan.
The answer to the superintendent is very simple. IF the ASD puts out accurate, timely and factual information and includes the media to disseminate such information, then he will not have to worry about “disinformation”. However if the press has to file a FOIA request and your attitude is “we will give you information when we deem you are needing to know”, then how dare you complain, sir!
To all the parents who are feeling the pinch and inconvenience, please vote smartly and pay attention who you vote for. We had an opportunity to show the door to a lot of the ASD Board members who have not done anything to improve our school system, but have spent the their time “laser focused” on things that “feel right”. And then hired an unqualified outsider when we had qualified candidates from Alaska. We can’t continue to do the same thing, and expect different results.
This isn’t all on the new superintendent. Though my bet is that he turns out to be a woke wolf in sheep’s clothing. This is an issue with the administration. Businesses everywhere, all over Alaska and the Lower 48 KNEW that hiring was going to be a problem. Exactly how the brain trust at the Anchorage School District missed this giant bat signal in the sky when the rest of the world sees it is beyond me – or most anyone else. The person directly in charge of hiring for busses, as well as that person’s boss, should be publicly fired. We need to know these people’s names. We need to see their faces. It needs to happen on television. We need to show that with incompetence comes consequences. These people should not be hidden and protected by a union that has its members as their first priority – not the students or the parents who foot the bill with their property taxes. Failure should be followed by consequences. That’s how it works in business. Why does it not work with the ASD?
To AK4Liberation. The School Board had a great Alaskan Candidate in Mr. Frank Hauser.He had 24 years of experience in the ASD Served as principal at Service High School where he had graduated. He was the Ak Principal of the year in 2016. He was Superintendent at Sitka Great for us but not great for the school board who voted for an Equity driven
Texan These elected officials always think they know best that outside hires are better. After working in the district for 17 years, I have seen it all and believe me outside hires are not always better. And Oh they hired and paid the former superintendent to train him and did she get him certified in july 2022 as he wasn’t qualified at first lacking 3 years of no teaching.As I have said since I have been here ” Only in Alaska”
As far as I know, bus service is mostly contracted out. And the drivers are not for the most part employees of ASD or the muni. And are only paid for the time actually driving, and not permitted to engage themselves in other activities while waiting for the school day to end. Basically, slave labor. When restaurants can’t even find people who will work part time for 30 bucks an hour, it is not unreasonable to assume that they will not solve the driver problem soon. Maybe some of those ASD employees driving around at all hours with a ladder that has never been off their brand new van can help. Certainly not the National Guard’s problem. When ASD has such a budget reserve and so large percentage of our property taxes fund them.
Why dont you quit wining and go get a job at the school district
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