The state Department of Education announced last week that its Get on Board initiative to revamp student bus transportation is set to expand beginning in November.<\/p>\n
The project, which launched Aug. 5, restored bus routes for the Aiea, Moanalua, Pearl City, Radford and Waipahu complexes in the first phase. The expanded routes will serve an additional 200 students from August Ahrens Elementary, Highlands Intermediate, and Pearl City and Waipahu high schools.<\/p>\n
“Like the inaugural phase of Get on Board, this second phase is being offered at no additional cost to our families,” said Ray L’Heureux, assistant superintendent of the Office of School Facilities and Support Services.<\/p>\n
“With use of the computerized software, we’re able to continue gathering data that is going to be important in our ongoing transportation reform efforts.”<\/p>\n
The project was created in response to bus route reduction in 2012, when more than 100 bus routes were eliminated because of rising costs and loss of funding. In addition to restoring routes, Get on Board also seeks to increase efficiency by streamlining the existing routes.<\/p>\n
DOE hopes that Get on Board will be adopted by all of Oahu for the 2014-15 school year, and by the entire state within the next two years.<\/p>\n
Letters were mailed to impacted areas to inform parents about the new phase of the initiative last week. Student riders must be registered.<\/p>\n
For more information, contact the Get on Board call center at 206-7936 or getonboard@hawaiidoe.org . Updates about the initiative will be posted on the DOE’s website at hawaiipublicschools.org\/BeyondTheClassroom\/Transportation\/Pages\/Home.aspx .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The state Department of Education announced last week that its Get on Board initiative to revamp student bus transportation is..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,16,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hawaii-community-news","category-west","category-west-oahu-news"],"yoast_head":"\n