Parochial students bus bound for hours by snowstorm

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Winter crippled Rhode Island last Thursday with an unexpected blast that stranded people and left them wondering, “Who’s in charge?”

The snow storm, which began around noon, left much of the state crippled. Highways were jammed as businesses closed, offices let workers leave and schools dismissed students at around the same time. Driving through, out of, or into Providence and surrounding cities any time after noon was nearly impossible. Many motorists were stranded when their cars ran our of gas, or were unable to make it up hills in the treacherous road conditions.

Among them were several school buses filled with children dismissed early from classes. The worst cases seem to have been with the Providence city schools, where some children were stranded on buses late into the night, despite having been dismissed from school in the early afternoon. Among them were several Catholic school students. The majority of Rhode Island’s Catholic schools depend on their neighboring public school system’s buses, and follows their lead when it comes to school dismissals. This time, the result was a study in disorganized chaos.

Mary Chabot, the principal at Msgr. Gadoury School in Woonsocket, succinctly described last week's snow-related early dismissal: "It was bedlam."

By the time parents picked up the last students on Thursday evening, Chabot knew that it was too late for her. The drive from Woonsocket to her home in Coventry, a long commute on the best of days, would be treacherous during the snowstorm and the epic traffic jams that clogged the state's highways and roads meant hours of sitting in traffic. So, she came upon a unique solution – she slept at the school.

A principal sleeping at school to avoid a nightmarish commute might seem strange, but as anyone who was stuck in traffic during Thursday's snow can attest, it might have been the best choice.

As many parents and teachers know, dismissing an entire school hours before scheduled is no easy feat. There are bus garages and public school districts to coordinate with and parents to notify, many of whom are at work and not easily reached.

At Msgr. Gadoury snow days arrivals and early dismissals are determined by the Woonsocket school district because the Catholic school uses the public school's buses. That system is dependent on a level of communication between the public and private schools that Chabot says completely broke down on Thursday. When Woonsocket schools made the call to dismiss their schoolchildren at 12:30 p.m., Chabot had no idea.

"The Woonsocket schools, they never notified us," she said. Luckily, the parent of a Msgr. Gadoury student works in the Woonsocket superintendent's office and thought to give Chabot a call.

The students who were bussed, she said, all made it home without any problems. It was the children whose parents usually come to pick them up that caused some difficulty. "The children that were picked up by cars, their parents were working and they couldn't get here," Chabot said. So, she was left at the school waiting with anxious children for their parents to arrive. "I joked with them that we might have to sleep at school," she said. In the end, it was no joke for Chabot.

Many schools and principals were left in similarly difficult positions across the state. At St. Ann school in Providence principal Harold Wright said he received the call from Providence city schools about the 12:30 p.m. dismissal very late. "It was a real scramble trying to get everyone ready," he said. Phones in the office as well as the personal cell phones of faculty and staff and students were used to contact every child's parents to notify them of the early dismissal. "Dismissing early is such a headache," Wright said, "it's a very difficult thing to do."

Some students were not picked up from the school until nearly four hours after school was dismissed because their parents were caught at work or in traffic.

While all the students eventually got home safely, for three, the bus ride was much longer than usual. The students, in 7th, 4th, and 1st grade, were the last three left on their school bus when it got stuck in standstill traffic on Atwells Avenue in Providence. Those students did not arrive home until 7:30 p.m., more than six hours after they got on the bus at 1:15 p.m. "There need to be some changes," Wright said, "It was [a situation] that I hope I don't have to deal with again."

The bus company, First Student buses, is a national company that contracts with Providence city schools.

The company did not return repeated telephone calls.

For those three students the ride home was long and slow, but for several other students from Catholic schools in Cranston, the bus ride was even more harrowing.

St. Mary School and Cranston Johnston Regional Catholic School both have students from the cities of Cranston, Johnston and Providence, which means their principals must coordinate with the separate bus garages of each city to ensure that all of their students have a safe ride home.

That coordination broke down during Thursday's storm. Several students–neither school could say for sure how many–were on a bus in Johnston when it slid off the road and hit a utility pole. No one was injured, but the bus was stranded waiting for help to get to them through the maze of congested traffic.

The real problem, though, was a serious lack of communication. The bus garage was in touch with the stranded bus, but it was not communicating with either of the schools. "I had no idea about the accident until a parent called looking for her daughter," said Barbara Costa, the principal of St. Mary school. According to a school staff member, who did not wish to be named, the school's administrators are "at the mercy of the transportation department." They cannot independently decide to close school early because they have to wait for the bus companies say when they will be there.

Another issue, she said, was that several news web sites listed incorrect dismissal information, leaving parents confused about whether the school was dismissing early and at what time. Officially, Costa said, the school did not have an early dismissal, only the bused students were sent home early. The school instructs its parents to go by the Cranston city schools' delays or early closings, so the school waited to hear from the Cranston superintendent's office before deciding when to dismiss. The system is flawed, the secretary said, because high school students generally get out earlier than elementary students. "They definitely should've had these kids out of here earlier," she said. Costa echoed her complaint. "I really think that the little ones need to get home first," she said.

One source of comfort, Costa added, was that the students were in good hands with the bus drivers. "The bus drivers that we have are usually very, very good," she said, "they know every student that gets on their bus."

The bus that was stranded had students from both St. Mary school and Cranston Johnston Regional Catholic school, the secretary there, Cheryl Irons, confirmed that they did not arrive home until around 4:45 p.m., more than three hours after they left the school.

The bus company and the superintendent did not return calls.

The situation at one Warwick Catholic school was much smoother than in Cranston and Providence. Barbara Dwyer, principal at St. Francis of Assisi school, credited her school's use of a phone system called ConnectED. The system, which the school installed last year, automatically calls all of the emergency numbers listed for a student – both parents' home, work and cell phones if possible – with either an automated message or a recorded message from the principal. Last Thursday, Dwyer used the system to notify parents that school was being dismissed at 12:30 p.m. "It expedites things," she said, "The parents love it. It's a real godsend."

Even though buses were initially delayed 40 minutes getting to the school because of the weather, no buses were stranded and all the children made it home in a reasonable amount of time. Because of the ConnectED phone system and good communication between the school and the bus garage, dismissal was "as smooth as it could be on a day like [Thursday]," Dwyer said.

Bus delays were common in schools across the state. Donna Anicelli, the secretary at Our Lady of Mercy Regional School in East Greenwich said that even though school was dismissed at 12:45 p.m., the buses didn't make it to pick children up until an hour later. Some were not home until 4 p.m., she said.

John Corry, the principal at St. Paul school in Cranston, reported similar delays. Because his school also coordinates busing between more than one city – Cranston and Providence – there were staggered dismissal times. The Providence buses arrived at 12:30 p.m. and the Cranston buses didn't arrive until an hour later at 1:30 p.m. "I wish they had been more in sync with each other," Corry said. ."One should know what the other is doing."

Despite the timing of buses, the dismissal went relatively smoothly, he said, because "we were very proactive." Because his school, like most other Catholic schools, waits until public schools decide to dismiss instead of making an independent call, they are at the mercy of the city schools. "The public school system, they are the ones that dropped the ball," he said.

Assistant superintendent of Catholic schools, Lillian McIntyre, said that while the weather uncontrollable, the bus drivers who braved the storm deserve recognition for getting all the children home safely, despite some mishaps. “I think that the responsibility they accept and assume is tremendous because it’s life and death,” she said, “The bus drivers, I really and truly think that they’re the heroes,” she added. As to the delays, traffic jams, and the minor accident, McIntyre said, some things are just beyond anyone’s control. “I don’t think that the kids being [stuck] on the bus was something anybody could’ve controlled – from the school department or the bus drivers’ perspective or the parents’ perspective,” she said.