Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just heard that the third bus that came to pick up the kids was not operational and NONE of the drivers had a CDL license. DCPS heads need to roll. Who hired these fools?

Rome Charters LLC

If the school organized the trip themselves, they pick the company they hire for bus service. So Murch very well could have picked the company.

Not how it works. DCPS provided the buses.

The news said that DCPS provided the buses. When my kid was at Murch the school never hired buses directly either.

Is Murch not DCPS? But of course however things work at Murch is obviously how it works everywhere else in DCPS.

Either way, it was a contractor and the contractor is paid to provide licensed drivers. Unless DCPS had prior knowledge that there were unlicensed drivers or those with prior DUIs, it’s on the contractor. Anytime I’ve hired contractors I’ve not asked to see the license and driving record of the workers. Maybe others do, but in my area of work it’s not standard. It’s literally why we hire contractors to do things rather than hire them as employees.

I wonder if the kids had fun at the police academy and in the Fairfax County busses. Thanks Fairfax for getting our DC kids home safe! No thanks DCPS for likely ruining field trips for a long time …

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just heard that the third bus that came to pick up the kids was not operational and NONE of the drivers had a CDL license. DCPS heads need to roll. Who hired these fools?

Curious whether you followed the news about the lack of a talent pool for these types of jobs over the summer?

What’s your point? We hire drinks now to drive our kids out of desperation? Pay them more and I’m sure the right people will take the job.

Or cancel the trip if you can’t find suitable transportation?? There are a huge number of options short of “hire someone with a recent DWI”

The driver had a PRIOR dwi, in the last 5-10 years! He shouldn’t have been allowed to drive a bus in the first place. And both the busses were unsafe and shouldn’t have been on the road. Someone really messed up here

https://wjla.com/amp/news/local/dcps-dc-bus-dwi-driver-charged-accident-murch-elementary-kids-field-trip-cox-farms-dmv-washington-district-school-classroom-education-troy-reynolds-bowser-dui-crime-virginia-nova-chantilly-bac-fairfax-county-police

Anonymous wrote:I see the great wisdom now in our walking field trip to a local church “pumpkin patch” in town!

the Cox Farm fieldtrip is really miserable. As is the apple picking field trip.

People get stuck on these as “traditions” instead of realizing that kids would have just as much fun taking the Metro bus to the zoo.

I see the great wisdom now in our walking field trip to a local church “pumpkin patch” in town!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just heard that the third bus that came to pick up the kids was not operational and NONE of the drivers had a CDL license. DCPS heads need to roll. Who hired these fools?

Rome Charters LLC

If the school organized the trip themselves, they pick the company they hire for bus service. So Murch very well could have picked the company.

Not how it works. DCPS provided the buses.

The news said that DCPS provided the buses. When my kid was at Murch the school never hired buses directly either.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just heard that the third bus that came to pick up the kids was not operational and NONE of the drivers had a CDL license. DCPS heads need to roll. Who hired these fools?

Curious whether you followed the news about the lack of a talent pool for these types of jobs over the summer?

What’s your point? We hire drinks now to drive our kids out of desperation? Pay them more and I’m sure the right people will take the job.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just heard that the third bus that came to pick up the kids was not operational and NONE of the drivers had a CDL license. DCPS heads need to roll. Who hired these fools?

Rome Charters LLC

If the school organized the trip themselves, they pick the company they hire for bus service. So Murch very well could have picked the company.

Not how it works. DCPS provided the buses.

Our ES hires the bus company directly — or at least they did a few years back. Has anything changed?

Anonymous wrote:I just heard that the third bus that came to pick up the kids was not operational and NONE of the drivers had a CDL license. DCPS heads need to roll. Who hired these fools?

Curious whether you followed the news about the lack of a talent pool for these types of jobs over the summer?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just heard that the third bus that came to pick up the kids was not operational and NONE of the drivers had a CDL license. DCPS heads need to roll. Who hired these fools?

Rome Charters LLC

If the school organized the trip themselves, they pick the company they hire for bus service. So Murch very well could have picked the company.

Not how it works. DCPS provided the buses.

In a school community where 75% of the kids have at least one lawyer parent, those lawsuits are going to be pouring in.

I was one of a half dozen parents on a school field trip where the driver was clearly lost on the drive back and got a bit belligerent at a calm suggestion from another dad that we were going the wrong direction and he could help navigate the route back.

Can't imagine how much worse this must have been.

Anonymous wrote:I just heard that the third bus that came to pick up the kids was not operational and NONE of the drivers had a CDL license. DCPS heads need to roll. Who hired these fools?

Rome Charters LLC

If the school organized the trip themselves, they pick the company they hire for bus service. So Murch very well could have picked the company.

The part that stuck out to me was that the teachers had to force the driver to stop the bus. Can you imagine that situation?
And yet- someone will come in with a clipboard and an IMPACT rubric in a few weeks, suggest that they don’t have enough anchor charts up in the classroom, and deem them an ineffective teacher.
I hope those teachers and kids get some time to recover from all this.