Monument-area school district adjusts to growth, development, road projects in bussing students

MONUMENT, Colo. (KRDO) -- You may think that school districts have their bus routes determined well before the first day of school, but Lewis-Palmer School District 38 waits until literally the last minute.

Don Hansen, the district's bus router who's been in charge of bus routes for seven years, explains why schedules are finalized so late.

"They're usually customized every year based on who's signing up," he explained. "We live in a fairly rural area. The customization comes down to getting to the roads where the students live who need the bus transportation. And there's there's a lot of changes that happen every year, too."

Along with new students coming into the district and others leaving, Hansen said that the Monument area is adjusting to population growth, development and several road construction projects.

"One of the the issues that 40-foot-long school busses have is getting turned around," he said. "We try to avoid situations where buses need to back up and turn in tight locations. We typically keep our buses out of those new neighborhoods until all of the construction is complete, the landscaping is complete, etc.

Hansen said that his goal is ensuring that he gets buses as close to where students live as possible, and to make transportation safe and efficient for students and bus drivers.

However, that's not easy to do when District 38 -- as are many other districts -- continues to cope with a shortage of bus drivers.

"We'd like to have 28 but we have only 19," he said. "As a result, there's a few neighborhoods where parents need to drive their kids to the bus stops, because we just don't have enough buses to do regular neighborhood buses."

District 38 also is challenged by weather and mountain roads, being on the Palmer Divide and Monument Hill's elevation of more than 7,300 feet.

Hansen said that the March 2019 "bomb cyclone" is an extreme example.

"We couldn't even close the schools because the roads were so treacherous," he recalled. "It wasn't safe for parents to pick up their kids, and it was hard for some of the bus drivers to get here. It wasn't until seven or eight o'clock that night before all the buses were back in."

KRDO 13's The Road Warrior is a former bus driver himself, having worked for two years in Missouri before moving to Colorado Springs.