Schools

East Penn Parents Will Have Emergency Bus Plan in a Week

Superintendent of schools Thomas L. Seidenberger tells East Penn Board of School Directors that he's been working with First Student to create an alternate route bus plan in the aftermath of the Oct. 29 snowstorm.

Thomas L. Seidenberger is being driven crazy by school busses.

Or, more specifically, the challenges he faced in getting busses around the district safely in the wake of the unusual October snowstorm that left many East Penn residents .

The East Penn Superintendent of Schools told the school board at last night’s meeting that he has been working closely with the school district’s bus company, First Student, to develop an emergency bus route/bus stop plan that will be mailed to all families in the in about a week.

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“We are not going to risk sending it electronically,” Seidenberger said, stressing how important it is that everyone in the district has this information at his or her fingertips in the event of future severe weather.

The plan will include basic emergency bus route policies, he explained, such as the fact that emergency bus routes, once put into effect, will be in effect for the entire school day.

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“If we call an emergency route,” Seidenberger said, “it will remain for the morning and afternoon period. With the snowstorm, we ran into a problem because the bus company was sending busses back on their regular runs as an area was cleaned up (without notifying anyone in the school district).

“We apologize for any inconvenience that this caused,” Seidenberger said.

Seidenberger added that he’s pretty sure that the district will need to enact the emergency bus plan at some point this winter. and the preceding back-to-back that had many roads in the area closed due to flooding helped to identify problem spots in the district, .

“We’ve had a lot of rainfall that has loosened the bases of a lot of trees,” he said. “One would have to assume that if we get any type of heavy snowfall, we’re going to have more trees fall.

“In all my years as a superintendent I have never seen weather like this before,” Seidenberger said, adding that he is not alone in his frustration, specifically mentioning his colleagues in the Salisbury and Saucon Valley school districts. “We’re all pulling our collective hair out over this.”


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