District will not plan bus routes

La Crosse Tribune, Aug 19, 2004 by McAlpine, Linda

IA CRESCENT, Minn. - Figuring out school bus routes is a complicated business.

The school district here had planned to take over that task this year from Ready Bus Lines, its transportation provider, as a money-saving measure, but changed its mind after finding it didn't have a reliable list of student addresses.

David Krenz, district superintendent, said Wednesday night the district will be working with Ready to prepare to do the routing next year.

"As we started to load our software and our data, we started to worry," he said.

Krenz said that more than 800 of the 1,500 student addresses the district had did not match mailing addresses.

The transportation committee negotiated a cost of $25,000 to have the bus company resume the routing responsibility, Krenz said.

Committee member Chuck Dockendorff said transportation boundaries for students will remain the same.

"Early on, we did talk about possibly changing that, but we found other ways to save money, so this is a win-win for everyone," he said.

Referendum panel

In other business, community members still are being sought to serve on the district's referendum committee.

Several board members will be on the committee, including board president Cindy Wright, Ruth Nissen, Chuck Dockendorff and, as an alternate, Kent Summerfield.

The first meeting will be held at 5:30 p.m. Monday, Aug. 23, in room one at the high school.

For more information about the committee, call the district office at (507) 895-4484.